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A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

SOME QUESTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

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A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM: 

SOME QUESTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 



BY 

MAY SINCLAIR 



Km fork 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1917 

All rights reserved 



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COPYRIGHT, 1917, 

By MAY SINCLAIR 



Set up and electrotyped. Published, August, 1917. 






\<V^° 






TO 

A. M. A. 

A. W. 

E. S.-M. 



INTRODUCTION 

Theee is a certain embarrassment in coming forward with 
an Apology for Idealistic Monism at the present moment. 
You cannot be quite sure whether you are putting in an 
appearance too late or much too early. 

It does look like personal misfortune or perversity that, 
when there are lots of other philosophies to choose from, 
you should happen to hit on the one that has just had a 
tremendous innings and is now in process of being bowled 
out. As long ago as the early 'nineties Idealism was sup- 
posed to be dead and haunting Oxford. I know that the 
New Realists have said that it is now a fashionable phi- 
losophy. But either they do not really mean it, or they 
mean that only philosophies in their last decrepitude be- 
come fashionable at all. They mean that nineteenth cen- 
tury Monism is a pseudo-philosophy of the past, and that 
twentieth century Pluralism is the living philosophy of 
the future. 

It is possible to agree with this view without accepting 
the programme of the pluralists. I think it may be said 
that certain vulnerable forms of Idealism are things of 
the past ; and that the new atomistic Realism is a thing of 
the future ; at any rate of the immediate future. But we 
know of Old Realisms that died and decayed, and were 
buried, and of New Idealisms that died and rose again. In 
India the Sankya philosophy of the Many fought the Ve- 
danta philosophy of the One. It can hardly be said to have 
driven its opponent from the field. Pragmatic Humanism 
and Vitalism are going from us in the flower, you may 
say, of their youth. And they were robust philosophies. 
M. Bergson even made Philosophy the vogue in Mayfair 



vi INTRODUCTION 

for a whole season. And so I think that some day (which 
may be as distant as you please) the New Realism will 
grow old and die, and the New Idealism will be born 
again. 

It will be born, not out of its own ashes, nor out of its 
own life only, but out of what is living in the system that 
for the time being has superseded it. The drastic criti- 
cism of their opponents is what keeps robust philosophies 
alive. And, seeing the great part that Idealism has played 
in the past, I cannot think that to choose it (if you have 
any choice in these matters) is perversity. 

It is, however, a personal misfortune when your choice 
causes you to differ, almost with violence, from those for 
whose accomplishment you have the profoundest admira- 
tion. You cannot help feeling that it would be safer to 
share some splendid error with Samuel Butler and M. 
Bergson, or with William James and Mr. Bertrand 
Russell (if the uncompromising virtue of Mr. Russell's 
logic left him any margin for error) than to be right in 
disagreeing with any of them. 

In Samuel Butler's case I feel no sort of certainty that, 
on the one point where I have differed from him, I am 
even approximately right. His theory of Personal Iden- 
tity is free from certain complications which are serious 
drawbacks to mine. Mine, if tenable, would solve the one 
serious difficulty of his. It would also go far to support 
the argument for Human Immortality. This, however, 
must tell against it rather than for it, by suggesting an 
unscientific parti pris. Pan-Psychism has an irresistible 
appeal to the emotions. I like to think that my friend's 
baby made its charming eyelashes, that my neighbour's 
hen designed her white frock of feathers, and my cat his 
fine black coat of fur, themselves; because they wanted 
to; instead of having to buy them, as it were, at some 
remote ontological bazaar. But emotion doesn't blind me 
to the possibility that things may not, after all, have hap- 



INTRODUCTION vii 

pened quite in this way. And this is the only " appeal " 
of any sort that Butler does make. He is pure from the 
least taint of what Mr. Bertrand Russell, quoting Mr. 
Santayana, calls " maliciousness.'' 

As for Personal Identity, both his theory and mine are 
open to the objection that they are not theories of per- 
sonal identity at all. In this matter I feel as if I had 
used Butler (and perhaps abused him) for my own pur- 
poses. He has given me an inch and I have taken an 
ell. Still, I think my ell was very fairly suggested by 
his inch. 

Discovering dilemmas in M. Bergson's philosophy is an 
enthralling occupation while you are about it ; but it leaves 
no solid satisfaction behind. It does not, as Samuel But- 
ler would have said, give you " peace at the last." When 
it is all over you feel as if it had not been quite worth 
while. What do a few logical dilemmas more or less 
matter in the work of a poet and a seer ? I said just now 
that Vitalism is a robust philosophy. It is nothing of the 
sort. It is subtle, exquisite, fragile. To try to analyse 
it, to break through that texture of beautiful imagination, 
is to lay violent hands on a living, palpitating thing that 
endures only on the condition that you do not handle it. 

One other part, at any rate, of what I have written 
calls for some apology — my criticism of Pragmatism 
which is associated with an honoured name. The monist 
who hates Pragmatism and loves the pragmatist; who, 
let us say, abhors William James's way of thinking 
and adores his way of writing; who, in the very moment 
of hostility, remains the thrall of his charming person- 
ality and brilliant genius, that monist is in no enviable 
case. But what was I to do ? I believe the issue between 
Pragmatism and Idealism is vital. I believe in Prag- 
matism as a branch, and a very important branch of casu- 
istry. I do not believe in it as a philosophy. It is a 
method and not a philosophy. It is not even a philosophic 



viii INTRODUCTION 

method. Pragmatism is one long argumentum ad ho- 
minem, and it is nothing more. 

Now, the argumentum ad hominem is all very well in 
its way, but that way should be purely supplementary. It 
is a perfectly fair and legitimate method when employed 
as an outside prop to the clean metaphysical arguments by 
which a clean metaphysical case must stand or fall. Any- 
body may use it for all it is worth, provided he gives due 
notice and isolates it to guard against infection. Mr. 
McDougall, for instance, defends Animism with a long 
array of arguments ad hominem; but he uses them under 
protest, as if he were a little bit ashamed of them; and 
he is careful to keep them in the strict quarantine of a 
chapter to themselves. Pragmatism, by its very nature, 
knows nothing of these precautions. It does not sterilize 
its instruments before it uses them. It does not want to 
sterilize them. It is courageous. It courts rather than 
fears infection. It must stand or fall by its appeal to 
the pragmatic instinct, the business instinct in men, or 
it would not be Pragmatism. 

And so I do not think that the pragmatist is always 
fair to his opponents. I do not mean that he weakens 
their case by misstatement before he demolishes it. Far 
from it. You might say that the mere statement of the 
monist's case was far safer in William James's hands than 
it is sometimes in his own. I mean that the pragmatic 
method, faithfully followed, lands the pragmatist in mis- 
representation, not of his opponent's case, but of his op- 
ponent's attitude. To call Monism the philosophy of the 
" Thin " and Pluralism the philosophy of the " Thick " 
is fair enough controversial practice. Eationalists may 
not like it, but they have brought it on themselves. But 
would it have occurred to anybody but a pragmatist to 
preface a serious course of lectures on his subject with a 
classification of Idealistic Monists as " Tender-minded," 
and of Pluralists as " Tough-minded " ? You might just 



INTRODUCTION ix 

as well call your opponent a fat-head at once and have 
done with it. It is deadly ; it is damning ; it is unforget- 
table. Such epithets stick and sting to all eternity. They 
keep people off Monism. They must have prejudiced Wil- 
liam James's audience against it from the start, before he 
could get in any of his logic. 

And that is precisely what it was designed to do. 

What was that audience to think when it was told that 
the tender-minded are: Rationalistic, intellectualistic, 
idealistic, optimistic, religious, free-willist, monistic and 
dogmatical ; and that the Tough-minded are : Empiricist, 
sensationalist, materialistic, pessimistic, irreligious, fatal- 
istic, pluralistic, sceptical ? 

Observe how Pragmatism appropriates all the robust 
and heroic virtues, and will not leave its opponent one of 
them. Think of the sheer terrorism of the performance. 
Could you wonder if, covered with that six-shooter, Profes- 
sor James's audience plumped for Pragmatism before it 
had heard a single argument? Each member of it must 
have registered an inward vow : " Tough-minded ? I'll 
be that!" 

But does the classification really hold? Are the vir- 
tues and vices justly apportioned? Nobody thinks of 
Kant and Hegel as nice comfortable philosophers whose 
bosoms they could lay their heads on. The Third Book 
of Hegel's Logic is not exactly an Education senti- 
mentale. And the Triple Dialectic is not regarded by any- 
body except pragmatists as suitable reading for the men- 
tally deficient. Kant's Pragmatism (of which, of course, I 
shall be reminded) was an after-thought; which doesn't 
prevent pluralists from using him as a whipping-post when 
they want to. The author of Die Welt als Wille und 
Vorstellung was not precisely one's idea of an optimist. 
There are passages in Dr. McTaggart's Studies in Hege- 
lian Cosmology from which you gather that he is not in- 
accessible to human tenderness ; but, with a toughness that 



x INTRODUCTION 

no pragmatist has ever equalled, he denies his Absolute 
to be a " person." He has stripped it bare of everything 
that is comfortable and nice. If it comes to that, what 
about the Pragmatic-Humanist's God who is so tender- 
minded that he cannot be held responsible for pain and 
evil, and collapses under the sheer emotional strain of his 
own universe? The God of Pantheism may have his 
brutal moments and his moments of unbending, but his 
worst enemies can't say he isn't robust. And there is no 
tenderness at all about Mr. Bradley's Princples of 
Logic. As for the Mr. Bradley of Appearance and 
Reality, if he has a fault, it is that, in the interests of 
his Absolute, he carries hard-headed, hard-hearted, thor- 
ough-paced scepticism to excess. By no possible manipu- 
lation of phrases can you make it appear that Mr. Bradley 
is even soft in places. He is, in fact, a " tough " whom 
one would have thought few pragmatists would care to 
meet on a dark night. Mr. Bertrand Russell is about the 
only living philosopher who can stand up to him. And 
we have heard before now of dogmatic Realism. 

And after all, is it so very certain that logical ideas 
are tender and that facts are hard ? Can you find a fact 
that's harder, more irreducible, than the principle of con- 
tradiction, or than any axiom of pure mathematics ? Pacts 
have a notorious habit of elusiveness and liquescence. As 
for thinness, is there anything more tenuous than matter, 
apart from our sensations of so-called material qualities ? 
Matter of which William James says that it is " indeed 
infinitely and incredibly refined." The physicist is he 
who deals in phantasms of thought, invisible, impalpable, 
compared with which even Dr. McTaggart's Absolute is 
a perfect Palstaff. 

It looks as if the only things that stand firm in this 
universe are Ideas. Truth, Goodness, Beauty: there is 
not a "fact" that bears their imprint and their image 



INTRODUCTION xi 

for long together; yet they, eternal and immutable, re- 
main. 

The backbone of Philosophy is Logic. Pragmatism 
has no logic; it is spineless. Idealism may have too 
much logic; it may be too rigid. But this, surely, is a 
fault on the side of hardness rather than of softness. At 
any rate, the method of Philosophy should be purely logi- 
cal. The idealist does claim purity for his method; and 
with some reason. The method of the pragmatist is con- 
taminated with its genial contacts, its joyous commerce 
with the metaphysically irrelevant. 

Pragmatism is an unsterilized Philosophy. 

I do not say it has not done good service in criticism; 
that it has not reminded us of the existence of things that 
idealistic philosophers forget. But if it were passionately 
adopted, consistently held, and carried to its logical con- 
clusions, the eternal ideas of Truth, Goodness and Beauty 
would lose their meaning and we our belief in them. 
Luckily, people are seldom logical, and consistent, and 
passionate in their adoption even of wrong methods in 
Philosophy. 

It is painful to differ from M. Bergson and from William 
James; but it is dangerous to differ from Mr. Bertrand 
Russell. If there is dismay just at present in the 
ranks of Idealistic Monism, it must be mainly owing to 
his formidable methods of attack. I hope there is dis- 
may. I should be very sorry for the idealistic monist who 
did not feel it. His complacency would do more credit to 
his heart than to his head. Humanism, Pragmatism and 
Vitalism have all " gone for " him ; but, barring the 
shrewd thrusts of William James, they have " gone " with 
no particular " flair " for his special vulnerability. And 
when touched he could always point to some wider chink 
in his opponent's armour. The assaults of Vitalism, at 
any rate, left his position practically intact. But the 



xii INTRODUCTION 

Realistic Pluralism of Mr. Bertrand Russell, of Mr. 
Whitehead, of Mr. Alexander and the New Realists is a 
very different thing. 

For the logical structure of Vitalism is faulty, though 
you feel instinctively that M. Bergson " has vision," and 
that his vision is right. With Atomistic Logic it is the 
other way about. Its structure is almost flawless ; though 
you may feel instinctively that its vision is, not wrong, but 
simply not there. I do not think that even an atomistic 
logician would go so far as to maintain that instinctive 
feelings and algebraic logic have nothing to do with each 
other, since feelings can be subjects of propositions. But 
he would say, and he would be perfectly justified in say- 
ing, that, if intellectual truth is your objective, you must 
get your logic right first and settle it with your instincts 
and your feelings afterwards as best you may. 

Now Atomistic Realism gives no support to the u Belief 
in the Beyond " and very little encouragement, if any, to 
the " Hope of the Hereafter." And in this world there is 
an enormous number of people (probably the majority 
of the human race) whose instincts and feelings are pas- 
sionately opposed to any theory which would deprive them 
of the Belief in the Beyond and of the Hope of the 
Hereafter. Many of them who would surrender the belief 
with composure still cling to the hope; many would give 
up the hope if only they could be sure of the belief. 
Others again, like William James, are quite genuinely 
indifferent to the event. The idea of life after death is 
even slightly disagreeable to them. Personally I do not 
share either the indifference or the repugnance. 

But those who do not desire personal immortality for 
themselves may desire it for others who are dearer to 
them than themselves. They cannot face with equanimity 
or indifference the thought of the everlasting extinction 
of these lives. And many of them care for intellectual 
truth as passionately as they care for their hope and their 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

belief. And between these two passions the new Phi- 
losophy draws a hard and fast line. It says : " If you are 
out for truth you must play truth's game. Your feelings 
and your instincts must take their chance. They must 
not be allowed to load the dice." 

That is the gist of Mr. Russell's austere and beautiful 
charge to the students of Philosophy; as it was Plato's; 
to " follow the Argument wherever it may lead " ; to 
wait patiently when it " puts on a veil." There are pas- 
sions and passions ; and it is to the passion for intellectual 
truth, fiery and clean and strong, that he makes his ir- 
resistible appeal. 

There are still a great many people who think that the 
Belief and the Hope are more compatible with some form 
of " Idealistic Monism " than with " Realistic Pluralism." 
They think that if Atomism is pushed to its logical conclu- 
sion there will be very little chance for God and Im- 
mortality. And I gather that Realistic Pluralists think so 
too. 

Is Realistic Pluralism really true? 

If it is, every hope and every belief that is incompatible 
with it must be given up. 

But if it is not true, if it is even doubtful, it would be, 
to say the least of it, a pity that anybody should be lured 
from his belief and hope by its intellectual fascination. 
I have tried to disentangle what is true in it from what 
I believe is merely fascinating. I have tried to disen- 
tangle what is untrue in Idealism from what I believe to 
be sound and enduring. Above all, I have tried to dis- 
entangle in my own conclusions what is reasonable sup- 
position from what is manifestly pure conjecture. I have 
tried to state my adversary's case to the best advantage 
for him. If I have failed in this, it will have been through 
misunderstanding, and not, I hope, through " malicious- 
ness." Some misunderstanding may have been inevitable 
in dealing with the purely mathematical side of Mr. Rus- 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

sell's argument; since mathematics are, for me, a difficult 
and unfamiliar country. It is here that I have every ex- 
pectation of being worsted. 

In all this it has been hard to free myself from the fas- 
cination of Pluralism. When exercised by Mr. Russell 
it is so great that almost he persuades me to be a Pluralist. 
If I have not surrendered it is for reasons which I have 
tried to make clear. 

There is one side of the New Realism which is not di- 
rectly touched in these essays — its Ethics. This ground 
is covered by what has been said about its theory of con- 
cepts or " universals " ; the " Platonic Ideas." But I be- 
lieve that Ethics owe a greater debt to the New Realism 
than to any philosophy that has been its forerunner in 
modern time. If " Goodness " and " Justice " are not 
eternal realities, irreducible and absolute, " moral sanc- 
tion " is a contradiction in terms ; there will be no ethical 
meaning and no content that distinguishes " goodness " 
from " usefulness " or " pleasantness," or " justice " from 
" expediency." The work of Mr. G. E. Moore is a per- 
fect exposure of the fallacies and sophistries of Hedon- 
ism, Utilitarianism, Pragmatism and Evolutionary Ethics. 
The clearest and strongest statement of the case for " Ab- 
solute " Ethics is to be found in his Principia Ethica, 
and in Mr. Bertrand Russell's Philosophic Essays. 

The reader must judge whether Absolute Ethics and 
the moral sanction are securer on a basis of Spiritual 
Monism or on the Pluralistic theory of " outside " real- 
ities. They will remember that a purely external sanc- 
tion is no sanction at all. The metaphysical basis is 
crucial in the ethical question. 

It may be that it is too late to reconstruct what Realism 
is destroying. It is certainly too early to forecast the 
lines on which reconstruction will proceed; and it would 



INTKODUCTION xv 

take a very considerable metaphysical genius to do it. 
These essays, therefore, only suggest the possibility of the 
New Idealism. 

No doubt many people will find that my " Questions " 
are out of all proportion to my " Conclusions/' and that 
the Conclusions themselves are too inconclusive. To these 
I cannot give any answer that would satisfy them. Others 
will object that my Conclusions are out of all proportion 
to their grounds, and that far too much has been taken 
for granted. They will protest against the appearance of 
an essay on " Mysticism " in a volume professing to deal 
seriously with serious problems. They may even look on 
its inclusion as an outrageous loading of the dice. 

To them I can only reply that that is why I have given 
to Mysticism a place apart, I agree that mystical meta- 
physics are an abomination. But metaphysical mysticism 
is another matter. I would remind my readers that some 
psychological questions were part of the programme too; 
that mysticism is of immense interest and importance in 
Psychology; and that I have criticized certain aspects of 
it as severely as its bitterest opponents could desire. I am 
as much repelled by the sensuous variety of mysticism as 
I am attracted by its austere and metaphysical form. I 
am as convinced as any alienist that its more abhorrent 
psychological extravagances are the hysterical resurgence 
of natural longings most unspiritually suppressed. These 
exponents are worthy only of the pity we give to things 
suffering and diseased. 

But there is another side even to what may be called the 
Saints' Tragedy. There is a passion and a strain and a 
disturbance of the soul, born of its struggle between re- 
ligious dualism and its unconscious longing for the Ab- 
solute. 

And there is also a pure and beautiful Mysticism that 
springs from the vision or the sense of the " Oneness " of 
all things in God. It knows nothing of passion's dis- 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

turbance and its strain. Its saints are poets and its 
counterpart in Philosophy is Spiritual Monism. 

The fact that this sense has been evolved steadily and 
perceptibly from the primitive savage's sense of the super- 
natural is no ground for depreciating it. You might as 
well depreciate the mathematical attainments of a plural- 
ist philosopher on the grounds that they have been evolved 
from the primitive savage's calculations with the fingers 
of one hand. The question for students of comparative 
religion is, not whether it is a survival (for all life is a 
survival), but whether its presence marks a reversion or a 
progression — whether it is a sort of vermiform appendage, 
or a form inspired with the secret of the life that was and 
is and is to be. 

But I am painfully aware of the extreme uncertainty of 
my " Conclusions " too. If it had been possible to give 
them the form of Questions, without making a mess of my 
sentences, I would have done so. It would have shown, 
perhaps, a greater courtesy to the Inscrutable. In any 
case I do not want to be wholly identified with my imag- 
inary monist, who is so undaunted and cock-sure. Under 
the horrible mauling he gets from vitalists, and pragmatic 
humanists, and pluralists, he does not, I am afraid, always 
display the very best metaphysical temper. 

Though I think the pragmatic method a wrong method 
in philosophy I have used it in one section of my final 
chapter; but I have followed Mr. McDougall's good ex- 
ample in placing it where it could do no harm. 

So many sources have been drawn on that but a small 
part, if any part, of this book can claim to be an 
original adventure. The best of it is only a following of 
good examples. Where I have touched on General Psy- 
chology I have invariably followed Mr. McDougall as the 
best available authority; but readers who are not familiar 
with his work should realize that he is not responsible for 



INTKODUCTION xvii 

any theories I may have based on it, and most likely he 
would not endorse them. 

My thanks are specially due to my friends, Mrs. Stuart 
Moore (Evelyn Underhill), who first introduced me to the 
classics of Western Mysticism, and to whose work in this 
field I am more indebted than I can say, and Mr. Cecil 
Delisle Burns, who made me acquainted with the New 
Bealists and held continually before me the risks I ran 
in differing from them. And to Mrs. Susie S. Brierley, for 
criticism relating to an important point in experimental 
psychology. Also to Dr. Beatrice Hinkle of Cornell Uni- 
versity, for kindly allowing me to use her admirable ren- 
dering of the Hymn " I am the God Atum," which ap- 
pears in her translation of Dr. Jung's Psychology of the 
Unconscious: and to the Editor of The North American 
Review for leave to reprint my article on the Gitanjali 
of Sir Babindranath Tagore." 

May Sinclair. 

London, 

January 25, 1917. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction v 

I The Pan-Psychism of Samuel Butler .... 1 

II Vitalism 44 

III Some Ultimate Questions of Psychology ... 67 

IV Some Ultimate Questions of Metaphysics . . . 109 
V Pragmatism and Humanism 127 

VI The New Kealism 151 

VII The New Mysticism 240 

VIII Conclusions 290 

Appendix 340 



A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

SOME QUESTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 



A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

SOME QUESTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 

I 
THE PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLEK 



The plain man is supposed (by philosophers who are sure 
of nothing) to be sure that, whatever else he is or isn't, he 
is himself. He may or may not believe that he has a soul, 
or, that, if he has one, it is the least bit likely to be im- 
mortal ; but he is quite, quite sure he has personal identity ; 
that he is not his own grandmother or his own son; and 
certainly not one of those objectionable Robinsons. 

He may even natter himself that he has what he calls 
Individuality. 

It is these happy certainties, and this pride of the plain 
man that Samuel Butler shatters with his theory of Pan- 
Psychism. If he does not positively strip every one of us 
bare of those three things, he maintains that, so far as we 
can be said to have them at all, they are what we have least 
cause to be proud of. 

As there certainly is a sense, and a very distinct sense, 
in which a man may be said to be his own grandmother 
and his own son (if he has a son), it may be worth while 
asking what we mean by Individuality, by Personal Iden- 
tity, and by a Self ? 

It is sometimes assumed, both by philosophers and plain 

men, that when we talk about these three things we mean, 

or ought to mean, the same thing. Yet it is pretty evident 

that we don't, and that we oughtn't to. We say that a 

1 



2 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

man has individuality if he has certain striking character- 
istics that mark him out from other men. And though, 
no doubt, by " individuality " we mean something rather 
more subtle and intimate than, say, a boisterous manner or 
a taste for Cubism, or for remarkable and distinctive neck- 
wear, we are very far from knowing precisely what we do 
mean. 

Anyhow, the term individuality would seem to stand, 
not so much for personal identity as for the marks and 
signs of it, and for something belonging to a self rather 
than for selfhood. 

In the same way, " personal identity " is not a term we 
can play ducks and drakes with. It does, I think, imply 
something that either has identity or has it not, that either 
is or isn't the same something wherever and whenever it 
appears to be. And that " something," again, would seem 
to be what we call a self. 

But it is by no means certain that the something that 
we call a self exists. It is, indeed, highly problematical. 
And as the existence of the Self happens to be the problem 
before us we must not assume it at the start. 

The trouble is that we have got to make some attempt at 
a definition, and that our definition must be wide enough 
to cover all the ground on which the problem has been 
previously debated. For this purpose we are driven to as- 
sume, most improperly, that the terms Self, Selfhood, Per- 
sonality, Personal Identity, and Individuality all stand for 
one and the same thing. 

For the moment, then, I shall take the simplest of these 
terms, Self, and define it as that which is present to all 
states of consciousness in any one conscious organism, and 
even this is a hazardous definition. Still, I can't think of 
any other that is more likely to satisfy any of the dispu- 
tants without begging the question in dispute. 

Consider what a question it is. 

For materialists the Self is an illusory by-product of 



PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BITTLEB 3 

consciousness, which is itself an illusory by-product of the 
physical processes of the organism and the world it lives in. 

For idealists like Mr. Bradley the Self is one horn of 
the interesting dilemma which lands him in the Absolute 
as his only refuge. 

For idealists like Dr. McTaggart it is a fundamental, 
though imperfect, " differentiation of the Absolute " ; a 
paradox that does not quite amount to a dilemma. 

For pragmatic psychologists like William James it is 
Individuality, the bundle of its own characteristics ; so its 
appropriate place is, quite clearly, with the things that are 
not selves. Which is the other horn of Mr. Bradley's 
dilemma. 

Again, for psychologists intimidated by William James, 
and anxious not to compromise themselves, it is " psychical 
disposition," whatever that is. 

Souls were " out of fashion " when William James was 
lecturing at Harvard; but they are coming in again with 
the courageous psychology of Mr. McDougall, for whom a 
self is, in plain, honest language, a Soul. 

For biology the self is the Individual, and the Indi- 
vidual is the living organism. 

For biologists like Samuel Butler, so far as individuality 
is more than numerical identity, it is the sum of the char- 
acteristics acquired consciously by the organism after its 
birth, — a contemptible sum compared with the vast capi- 
tal it carries over from the experience of the race. All 
that experience (by which it has incredibly profited) the 
individual keeps stored in his unconscious memory and 
draws upon for every occasion in his daily life. His un- 
conscious memory is thus a vast pantechnicon of knowl- 
edges and aptitudes that serve him far better than any 
that he can learn or cultivate on his own account. Ac- 
cording to Samuel Butler our unconscious life is the only 
life that is complete and perfect and worthy to be lived. 
And he drives us to the conclusion that individuality is the 



4: A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

most insecure of our possessions, and that, any way, the 
individual does not greatly matter. 

We should have had to leave it at that but for certain 
recent developments in the study of abnormal psychology. 

Psychoanalysis, which is based on a minute and de- 
tailed observation of the same facts of unconscious mem- 
ory, suggests the opposite conclusion. 

It is odd that the only light that has so far been shed on 
this dubious question should come from that region of 
profound murkiness. This is not the place either for a 
defence or for a critique of Psychoanalysis. 1 Psycho- 
analysis is on its trial. The result of the trial need not 
concern us. Psychoanalysts themselves appear to be 
divided into two camps. Their differences need not con- 
cern us. For our purposes they do not amount to a row 
of pins. For all psychoanalysts are agreed that the Un- 
conscious is a vast pantechnicon; but a pantechnicon 
murky to the last degree and chock-full of hideous and re- 
pulsive things. But its murkiness need not concern us 
either. Granting for the moment that we know what we 
mean by the Unconscious, and that the Unconscious is, or 
can be, a pantechnicon, and that it is full to overflowing, 
I see no reason why it should overflow with things hideous 
and repulsive any more than with beautiful and attractive 
things. It seems fairly obvious that all sorts of things 
must have been put away there, and that psychoanalysts 
have not laid their hands on all of them. Enough that 
both the psychoanalysts and Samuel Butler find the main- 
spring of evolution in the organism's Will-to-live and to- 
make-live. Both assume that the Life-Force is a psychic 
rather than a physical thing. 

For our purposes it does not matter whether the New 
Psychology of the psychoanalyst lays too much stress on 
the Will-to-make-live and too little on the Will-to-live. On 



PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLER 5 

both theories the Will-to-live is indestructible. It persists 
in the unconscious memory of the individual. And 
through his unconscious memory the individual is one 
with the race psychically as well as physically. 

But whereas Samuel Butler says our only sane and per- 
fect life is the life we live unconsciously, the whole theory 
and practice of psychoanalysis rests on the assumption 
that we only live sanely and perfectly so far as we live 
consciously, so far as our psyche lifts itself up above its 
racial memories and maintains the life which is its own — 
that is to say, so far as we are individuals. The secret of 
individuality lies in the sublimation to consciousness of 
the unconscious Will-to-live. 

To me this theory of sublimation is the one thing of 
interest and of value that Professor Freud and Professor 
Jung have contributed to Psychology. Unfortunately the 
classic literature of the subject leaves this part of it a 
little vague. The student is told all about psychoanalysis 
— more indeed than he may care to know ; all the horrific 
contents of the pantechnicon are turned out for his in- 
spection. But it is left to his own ingenuity to discover 
precisely what sublimation is and how it works. Roughly 
speaking, it is the diversion of the Life-Force, of the Will- 
to-live, from ways that serve the purposes and interests of 
species, into ways that serve the purposes and interests of 
individuals. Roughly speaking, all religion, all morality, 
all art, all science, all civilization are its work. 

Now it may be objected that (unlike Samuel Butler) 
the psychoanalyst is a specialist, and a specialist in ab- 
normal psychology at that. And, as his conclusions are 
drawn from minute and incessant observation of the be- 
haviour of abnormal psyches, they can be of no possible use 
to us. 2 We are not concerned with the eccentricities 
of neurotics and of moral lunatics. But though we are 
not concerned with them, they have a vital bearing on our 



6 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

problem all the same. For the net result of the psycho- 
analyst's investigations can be summed up in three words : 
Neurosis is degeneration. 

In this sphere every transgression is retrogression. 
Every perversion is reversion. The neurotic, or the 
morally insane person, has turned back on the path by 
which he came. He is the slave or the victim of his own 
unconscious memories and instincts, of that forgotten yet 
undying past that preys upon the present and the future. 

Individuality, on this theory, is the outcome of a suc- 
cessful resistance to racial tendencies. The normal 
grown-up individual has no longer any need to struggle 
against the forces that would drag him back and back to 
the life of the child, the savage and the ape ; but the more 
individual he is the more he will resist the pull of the 
generation just behind him. And all individuality — the 
first time it appears — is genius. 

Clearly, this triumph of the individual would be im- 
possible if the Will-to-live were incapable of sublimation, 
and if there were not more of it going, as it were, than 
what suffices for the needs of the species. We have, 
therefore, to assume this incalculable amount over and 
above, and this capacity for sublimation. And here we 
are up against that bogy of the psychoanalysts' — Bepres- 
sion. 

At first sight it seems obvious that sublimation should 
involve repression. The instincts of the primitive savage 
must be repressed in the interests of civilization. The 
baby's sucking instincts must be repressed if the child is to 
be fed from cup and spoon. Adolescence must break the 
child's habit of dependence if it is ever to become man- 
hood. At any age there is a limit to the desires the indi- 
vidual can satisfy and the pursuits he can follow with 
success. Sooner or later a selection must be made; and, 
other things equal, the beauty and worth of the individual 



PAJST-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLEK 7 

will depend on the beauty and the worth of the interests 
he chooses for his own. All sublimation is a turning and 
passing of desire from a less worthy or less fitting object 
to fix it on one more worthy or more fitting. 

In the healthy individual there is no more danger in this 
turning and passing than in the transition from infantile 
baldness to a head of hair. But for the neurotic every 
turning, every passage, bristles with conflict and disturb- 
ance. He goes through crises that the normal individual 
never knows. Kepression seems to be positively dangerous 
to him. He cannot take even a little mild correction 
without it hurting him. He cannot take anything like 
other people. 

Now the psychoanalysts tell you that wherever there is 
repression without sublimation there is a neurosis or 
psychosis. It would be truer to say that wherever there is 
repression there is no sublimation, and wherever there is 
sublimation there is no repression. The Will-to-live has 
found another outlet, the indestructible desire another ob- 
ject, and all is well. For the happy normal individual, 
desire is never repressed; it is either directed and con- 
trolled, or it wanders of its own accord into the paths of 
sublimation. (Psychoanalysts, out to vilify the Uncon- 
scious, have not paid sufficient attention to the facts of 
unconscious sublimation and all that they imply.) 

It is not quite clear whether with the neurotic every at- 
tempt at normal control issues in a repression. Most 
cases seem to point to some inhibition of the process of 
sublimation. The neurotic is so ticklish that both right- 
eous reproof and tender admonition may have this arrest- 
ing tendency. Anyhow, it seems pretty certain that, 
whatever may cause it to occur, genuine repression, the 
damming up of every outlet for the Will-to-live, does 
really, sooner or later, set up some form of neurosis. 

When this happens, the repressed Will-to-live, the frus- 



8 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

trated desire, whatever it may be, turned back again into 
the Unconscious, is stamped down there, forsaken by the 
psyche and forgotten. 

But it is not destroyed. You cannot destroy what is 
indestructible. Cut off from the psyche's real life, it sets 
up an unreal life of its own. It lives again, as all unac- 
complished desires live, in the dream world, and in the 
haunted world below our waking consciousness. There it 
plays its part, disguised in fantastic and symbolic forms 
that have an ancient history. 

For when Professor Freud began analysing the dreams 
and waking phantasies of his patients, he discovered that 
the persistent and recurrent symbols of the neurotic dream 
and the insane phantasy are the same symbols that we find, 
persistent and recurrent, in all primitive ritual and myth 
and folk-lore. For instance, in the dream — which he de- 
fines as " the disguised fulfilment of a repressed wish " — 
a serpent, fire, wood, water, a tree, an arrow, a sword, an 
eagle, a wheel, a circle, a cross, a ram, a lion, a hat, have 
the same symbolic meaning and are used with the same 
psychological intention of revelation and disguise as in the 
oldest rituals and mythologies. Wherever they appear 
they stand for the Life-Force, the Will-to-live and to- 
make-live; and their ritual intention represents man's 
primitive and incomplete effort at sublimation. 3 

They are there, in the Unconscious, just because they 
were there from the beginning. The very fact that the 
repressed desire finds them there and arrays itself in them 
shows how far it has turned back along the path by which 
it came. 

The psyche has forgotten these things and knows noth- 
ing. But the Will-to-live has been there before and re- 
members. It knows its old playground and is at home on 
it. And there it stays, horribly, forlornly enchanted ; be- 
yond the reach of consciousness, its vehicle a symbol, its 
clothing a dream. 



PAN-PSYCHISM OP SAMUEL BUTLER 9 

You see now dreadful it all is, and how easily the cause 
of neurosis and of insanity might lie there ; in the cutting 
and casting off, the miserable isolation and abandonment 
of the Will-to-live, its powerlessness to answer to the 
psyche's call. If the neurotic cannot sublimate his Will- 
to-live it is because his Will-to-live has been turned back so 
far that all conscious links with it are broken. 

If this is not psychoanalysis, it is the purified spirit of 
psychoanalysis. It is, I believe, the truth that underlies 
its theory. The reality that underlies its practice is the 
breaking of the spell of f orgetf ulness ; the deliverance of 
the Will-to-live from its bondage to the Unconscious. 
With its restoration to the psyche's conscious life sublima- 
tion becomes possible to it. And with sublimation the in- 
dividual comes again into his own. 

In this healing process it is clear that we have to do, not 
so much with the disclosure of a shameful secret as with 
the recovery of a lost Will. 

It does not look at first sight as if Psychoanalysis had 
given us anything that amounts to very much. Only three 
conceptions more or less coherent: a conception of the 
Will-to-live, valid as far as it goes, but vague, and bound 
up with a conception of the Unconscious worse than vague, 
because it betrays its inherent self-contradiction as soon 
as you begin to work with it : a conception of Sublimation 
by which this Will-to-live perpetually transcends itself 
and is made manifest in higher and higher and more and 
more complex forms of life, — a process described in 
terms which sound morally satisfying, and are still any- 
thing but clear : a conception of the Individual as a being 
of immense importance, seeing that just those forces 
within and without him which arrest and retard his indi- 
viduality are backward forces; that the worst misfortune 
that can befall him is the backward turn that lands him 
in his own past; and that the peculiar malignity of his 
worst maladies is that they rob him of his power to assert 



iO A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

his qualities against the general characteristics of the race. 
Still, this conception of individuality is something. The 
individual, at whatever stage we find him, appears as the 
forerunner, the master builder, that superior, swifter 
vehicle of the Will-to-live which carries it forward and 
upward. By virtue of his individuality he serves the 
higher functions of the Will-to-live. The plot thickens, 
widens, deepens, and grows infinitely richer as the indi- 
vidual gets his hand in more and more. 

We have there a perfectly valid and comparatively pre- 
cise conception. 

And yet it is only when we come to the Individual and 
ask ourselves what we mean by Individuality that our real 
troubles begin. 

This conception of the Individual that Psychoanalysis 
gives us is bound up with our vague conception of the 
Will-to-live, which is itself bound up with the still vaguer 
conception of the Unconscious. And it is this conception 
of the Unconscious which blocks the way. 

Until now, here and elsewhere, to avoid confusion, 
I have followed my authors in using this term — using it 
in any sense which happened to serve any purpose of the 
context at the time. In slavish subservience I have 
spoken of instincts and desires, symbolic meanings and 
ideas hidden away in our Unconsciousness, as if our Un- 
consciousness were a cupboard or a cellar. Just now I 
spoke of stamping them down into the Unconscious, as if 
it were so much damp earth, and of lifting them up out 
of it and carrying them into the Conscious, as if this 
operation were performed with a spade and wheel-barrow. 
I even suggested, and not so very figuratively either, a 
going down into the Unconscious to fetch back the Will- 
to-live. 

And all the time I was doing it, it seemed to me that my 
authors and I were describing a perfectly credible per- 
formance. It seemed to follow from the grounds and 



PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLEK 11 

from the whole trend and purpose of Psychoanalysis that 
the performance was credible ; and with each step the Un- 
conscious acquired more and more an almost discernible 
substance and a palpable power. There it was, under- 
lying everybody's psychic processes, and doing people — 
quite innocent people — all sorts of harm. And if I did 
not speak of unconscious psychic processes it was more by 
good luck than good management. 

Now, by the Unconscious you may mean, properly, 
either things without consciousness, such as chairs and 
tables, and thunder and lightning ; or living things, includ- 
ing ourselves, in their moments of unconsciousness. Or a 
metaphysical Keality conceived as unconscious. 

The first sense was not contemplated in any of our con- 
texts. (You cannot talk about stamping instincts and de- 
sires down into the inorganic.) And we should have had 
to be very sure of our " selves " and the " selves " of other 
organic beings before adopting the second. The third will 
appear later, but we have no need for it yet. 

So our real meaning emerges. When we talk about un- 
conscious psychic states and unconscious psychic processes, 
we mean psychic states and processes of which we are not 
conscious. It is owing to the limitations of the language 
that we are obliged to talk about the states as if they were 
or could be conscious or unconscious of themselves. We 
have no business whatever to hand over our consciousness 
or unconsciousness to them. We may have to go on talk- 
ing about conscious and unconscious states, for the sake of 
convenience in handling sentences, but we should be very 
sure that we know what we are doing. 

On the other hand we cannot talk about states of un- 
consciousness as if the term were interchangeable with 
states we are not conscious of. For we have nothing im- 
mediately before us from moment to moment but the 
states of consciousness. A state of unconsciousness may 
mean any condition of unawareness, from profound sleep 



12 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

to mere forgetfulness, or inattention to what is going on 
around me, or ignorance — say of what President Wilson 
is going to do about the Blockade, or of what my neighbour 
is doing in his back garden. A state of which we are not 
conscious is a state whose existence we infer from its re- 
sults when we happen to be conscious of them. Such are 
our so-called inherited instincts, the hidden " complexes," 
the hidden ideas, meanings and associations revealed under 
hypnotic suggestion and psychoanalysis; and all states of 
so-called " unconscious cerebration." 

Now at any moment I may wake from my sleep, I may 
remember what I have forgotten, my attention may be 
drawn to what is going on around me, even my ignorance 
of what President Wilson is going to do will cease when, 
if ever, he should finally make up his mind, and with a 
little trouble I can inform myself of what my neighbour 
is doing in his back garden. But of my states of " un- 
conscious cerebration " I am never conscious ; and I may 
go all my life without being conscious of a single one of 
my " inherited " instincts or of those hidden things. And 
the probability is that I shall in no circumstances ever be 
conscious of by far the greater number of them. Even of 
the things I merely do not attend to — to say nothing of 
the million impressions that assail my sense organs every 
instant, of which every instant I remain profoundly un- 
aware — the chances are that, though they must be faith- 
fully recorded somewhere, I shall never be more conscious 
of them than I am now. 

I am insisting on these distinctions — familiar to every 
student of psychology — because they help to clear up the 
original confusion, and because we shall have to consider 
them very carefully later on. 

For the moment, then, we must assume that the terms 
Unconscious and Unconsciousness stand for any or all of 
those psychic or psychophysical states of which we are 
not conscious. And by the " Conscious " and the " Con- 



PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLER 13 

sciousness " we have been talking about we mean states of 
consciousness and nothing more; otherwise we shall be 
begging the question of the existence and the nature of 
the ultimate principle we desire to re-establish later on. 
We ought to mean this, and we must mean it ; for, what- 
ever else we want to mean and intend ultimately to mean, 
it is all that discreet Psychology will allow us to mean at 
present. 

" Unconsciousness " or " the Unconscious," then, re- 
solves itself into a negative abstraction. 

But we must not forget that in our context its function 
was neither negative nor abstract; it played a very posi- 
tive and concrete psychological role. And if we are asked 
whether in dismissing it we have anything half so good to 
put in its place, we may say that states, or processes, of 
which we are not conscious will do extremely well ; and if 
we want to keep the old terms, " the Unconscious " or 
" Unconsciousness," understood as a sort of convenient 
shorthand for these fuller and more precise terms, we 
may. Or we can use them as equivalents for the sum of 
those processes and states. 

As we have seen, by far the most important part among 
them was taken by the Will-to-live. It is this Will-to-live 
that we have conceived of as transferred and transformed, 
or sublimated, and as passing over from the Unconscious 
to the Conscious, as if it belonged veritably and by its own 
nature to both worlds. If it did it would be as good a 
bridge as any we have a right to ask for ; and it may prove 
to be all the bridge we are entitled to have. 

But we found the greatest difficulty in representing to 
ourselves at all intelligibly its double role. And as far as 
our conception of Individuality and Personal Identity is 
bound up with this conception of the amphibious nature of 
the Will-to-live it will be affected by its vagueness and 
confusion. It may be that this is inevitable, and that we 
cannot form any intelligible conception of either, or of 



14 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

their relations to each other; in which case we shall have 
to accept the problem as insoluble and put up with the 
vagueness and confusion. 

Let it be clear that this trouble is the old trouble carried 
a step farther, and that the vagueness, confusion, and unin- 
telligibility arise from nothing more or less than the in- 
trusion of the Unconscious, with a big U, into the region 
of the Conscious with a big C. As a matter of fact, un- 
conscious states, states we are not conscious of, always are 
intruding, that is to say, conditioning, determining, gen- 
erally influencing, and for all we know to the contrary, 
actually causing conscious ones. They can do this to the 
disturbance and the detriment of our Individuality, or 
perhaps (a most disagreeable thought) even of our Per- 
sonal Identity. 

Now, if it could be shown that there never was an un- 
conscious psychic state that was not, at some time or other, 
a conscious one, and may be, at some time or other, a con- 
scious one again ; if it could be shown that all unconscious- 
ness at least of what we call " past " states is simply a 
forgetting which is never final and complete ; if, further, it 
could be shown that what we call forgetting is never for- 
tuitous or arbitrary, is never even involuntary, that we 
forget not because we must, but because we will and for 
our own purposes, and that we remember for the same 
reason, remembrance being selection and selection an act 
of will, and that both remembrance and forgetting serve 
the interests of our individuality and are part of the ever- 
lasting process of sublimation, we shall be very much 
nearer the solution of our problem than we are now. 

I confess that I should not have known where to turn 
for the precise evidence which will show this if it were 
not for the work of Samuel Butler, the only thinker, 
so far as I know, except his predecessor, Professor Ewald 
Hering, 6 who has succeeded in making the subject 
of Heredity thoroughly intelligible. I might have said, 



PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLER 15 

who has made it thoroughly amusing at the same time. 

The undeserved neglect of Butler's scientific work is 
probably owing to his incurable habit of being amusing, 
not mildly and academically, but startlingly, recklessly, 
extravagantly amusing throughout the entire course of a 
serious argument. What was the scientific world of the 
'seventies and 'eighties to think of a man who could dream 
of immortalizing his Address on " Memory as a Key to the 
Phenomena of Heredity " under the title of Clergyman 
and Chickens? 7 It seemed to consider that a man 
who couldn't control himself far enough to be serious over 
a serious subject like that was not to be taken seriously. 
Besides, though Butler could dissect clergymen very skil- 
fully, it was evident that he had never so much as skinned 
a chicken in his life. So the scientific bigwigs of his 
day neglected Butler. And I am afraid that even at this 
moment Psychoanalysts who can talk about the " poly- 
morphous perverse " and the " Father-Imago " without 
the ghost of a smile will have no use for Butler either. 

Still, they ought to have, for he has done more to make 
them intelligible than they have themselves. 

I cannot help myself to as much of Butler as I should 
like, for I should get into trouble with the holders of his 
copyright. So I must refer my readers (if I am lucky 
enough to have any) to the four books on evolution and 
heredity: Life and Habit, Evolution Old and New, Un- 
conscious Memory, Luck or Cunning? and all the passages 
in The Note-Books of Samuel Butler which bear on those 
subjects and on individuality and Personal Identity. And 
if in the end I accept Butler's theory of Heredity and re- 
ject his theory of Individuality and Personal Identity it is 
for his own reasons and for others which I hope will be 
made clear. 

First of all (readers of Butler must forgive me if I 
take them over ground already familiar to them), first of 
all he starts with certain observations of experience. Ac- 



16 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

tions which we once performed with difficulty and with 
attention, with immense effort of will and intense con- 
sciousness, such as playing an instrument, writing, read- 
ing, talking and walking, we now perform automatically 
and unconsciously, and with a success increasing according 
to the extent of our practice, that is to say, according to 
the numbers of times those actions have been repeated, the 
point of perfection being only reached when the action is 
performed unconsciously. 

All these actions, constantly repeated, have become 
habits of our body. 

Still, a certain amount of consciousness goes with the 
action of walking, and a greater amount with the action of 
talking, and so on, while (Butler might have added) con- 
tinuance of all of them past the point of fatigue will bring 
us back to effort and consciousness again. So that we can 
realize how great must have been the effort and how in- 
tense the consciousness they started with. 

But the older actions and habits, such as the beating of 
the heart, breathing and digestion, are unaccompanied by 
consciousness and effort, or any memory of consciousness 
and effort. 8 And Butler asks : " Is it possible that 
our unconsciousness concerning our own performance of 
all these processes arises from over experience ? " 9 

His entire theory of evolution is thus based on the 
simple truism that Practice makes perfect. 10 When 
he finds an action performed with a supreme perfection, a 
supreme unconsciousness, he concludes — not that these 
actions have always been unconscious, but — that ages of 
practice, of effort that has been conscious, have gone to the 
result. 11 He argues that we do these things so well 
only because we have done them before, because in the 
persons of our parents and our ancestors we have prac- 
tised doing them for untold ages. (Observe that Butler 
regards the experience of our parents and our ancestors as 
our experience just as much and in as much as our bodies 



PANT-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLER 17 

are our bodies. ) Because — in short — we know how to 
do them. 

" What is to know how to do a thing ? Surely to do it. What 
is proof that we know how to do a thing? Surely the fact that 
we can do it. A man shows that he knows how to throw the 
boomerang by throwing the boomerang. No amount of talking 
and of writing can get over this ; ipso facto, that a baby breathes 
and makes its blood circulate, it knows how to do so; and the 
fact that it does not know its own knowledge is only proof of the 
perfection of that knowledge, and of the vast number of past 
occasions on which it must have been exercised already." 12 

And what holds good of the baby and its body after birth 
holds good before birth. 

" A baby, therefore, has known how to grow itself in the 
womb and has only done it because it wanted to, on a balance 
of considerations, in the same way as a man who goes into the 
city to buy Great Northern shares. ... It is only unconscious 
of these operations because it has done them a very large num- 
ber of times already. A man may do a thing by a fluke once, 
but to say that a foetus can perform so difficult an operation as 
the growth of a pair of eyes out of pure protoplasm without 
knowing how to do it, and without having done it before, is to 
contradict all human experience. Ipso facto that it does it, it 
knows how to do it, and ipso facto that it knows how to do it, 
it has done it before." 13 

And what holds good of the unborn baby holds good of 
the primordial germ plasm. 

" There is in every impregnate ovum a bona fide memory, 
which carries it back not only to the time when it was last an 
impregnate ovum, but to that earlier date when it was the very 
beginning of life at all, which same creature it still is, whether 
as man or ovum, and hence imbued, as far as time and circum- 
stances allow, with all its memories." 14 

That neither the baby nor the germ consciously knows 
and remember any longer is what we might infer from the 
present ease and perfection of their performances. 



18 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

" We must be all aware of instances in which it is plain we 
must have remembered, without being in the least degree con- 
scious of remembering. Is it then absurd to suppose that our 
past existences have been repeated on such a vast number of 
occasions that the germ, linked on to all preceding germs, and, 
by once having become part of their identity, imbued with all 
their memories, remembers too intensely to be conscious of re- 
membering, and works on with the same kind of unconscious- 
ness with which we play, or walk, or read, until something un- 
familiar happens to us % " 15 

This " something unfamiliar " that happens to it being 
birth. 

And when we look at the life of the grown-up individual 
and of the baby and of the germ as an unbroken series, it 
is a " singular coincidence " that " we are most conscious 
of and have most control over " our distinctively human 
functions, and that we are " less conscious of and have less 
control over " our prehuman functions, and that " we are 
least conscious of and have least control over " those func- 
tions " which belonged even to our invertebrate ancestry, 
and which are habits, geologically speaking, of extreme 
antiquity." 16 

Surely an utterly incomprehensible arrangement if we 
exclude consciousness and design from evolution; per- 
fectly comprehensible, not to say inevitable if we admit 
them. 17 

There are other facts in evolution which are perfectly 
explicable on Butler's theory, and utterly incomprehensible 
if we exclude desire and design and the continuity of con- 
sciousness in all organic beings. Such are the sterility 
of hybrids, the instincts of neuter insects; and, to some 
extent, the effects of use and disuse, which fit into it with- 
out exactly calling for it. 18 

His conclusion is, not that memory and instinct are 
habit, but that all habit and all instinct are memory ; 19 
that both are the result of practice ; that both, unerring and 
perfect in adaptation as they have become, presuppose 



PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLER 19 

knowledge and volition on the part of the individual that 
displays them, and not, as we are accustomed to imagine, 
merely on the part of its ancestors ; that when we talk about 
inherited memory or inherited anything, we have fallen 
into confused thinking and are using words without mean- 
ing; that every reflex is a lapsed volition, and all uncon- 
sciousness a lapsed consciousness ; that change and growth 
arise in fulfilment of a need, a want, a " libido," having at 
one time been brought about with consciousness, with de- 
sign and with volition; that the individual inherits his 
own and not another's, and therefore knows it again so 
perfectly that he is not " conscious " of it, he himself, the 
irreducible entity, having been present in all experiences 
and in all memories we call racial or ancestral. 

" What is this talk that is made about the experience of the 
race, as though the experience of one man could profit another 
one who knows nothing about him? If a man eats his dinner, 
it nourishes him and not his neighbour; if he learns a difficult 
art, it is he that can do it and not his neighbour." 20 

But when we come to ask how the Individual has been 
present in the experiences of his ancestors, and in what 
way his ancestors, on this theory, differ from him, Butler's 
answer, though transparently clear, is hard to reconcile 
with any conception of the importance of the Individual. 
Not that there is the smallest confusion in his mind on this 
crucial point : 

". . . an impregnate ovum cannot without a violation of first 
principles be debarred from claiming personal identity with both 
its parents. . . ." 

". . . We ignore the offspring as forming part of the person- 
ality of the parent . . . the law . . . perceives the completeness 
of the present identity between father and son. . . ." 

" The continued existence of personal identity between parents 
and offspring." (Life and Habit, pages 85, 95, 97.) 

" But can a person be said to do a thing by force of habit or 
routine when it is his ancestors and not he that has done it 



20 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

hitherto ? Not unless he and his ancestors are one and the same 
person." (Unconscious Memory, page 17.) 

It is also expressly stated that " oneness of personality 
between parents and offspring " is the first of the " four 
main principles " laid down in Life and Habit {Uncon- 
scious Memory, page 19). 

" Personal identity cannot be denied between parents and off- 
spring without at the same time denying it as between the differ- 
ent ages (and hence moments) in the life of the individual." 
(The Note Boohs of Samuel Butler, page 375.) 

On this showing the individual has but little that he 
can call his own. It is not so much that the memories of 
his ancestors are platted in with his memories as that his 
memories — all but the comparatively few and insignifi- 
cant ones contributed by his experiences after birth — are 
platted in with theirs. To say that this is impossible, be- 
cause he has never appeared as an individual before birth, 
is to beg the question of his appearance and his individu- 
ality. 

It is clear that Butler had no particular prejudice in 
favour of his own conclusion, but that he was driven to it 
by an impartial survey of the facts. We shall see later on 
that he was driven into the very last place where we should 
expect to find him, the last place where he would have 
wished to be. I repeat, there is no confusion and no hesi- 
tation in Butler's mind on this point. We were our own 
parents and grand-parents, we were our entire prehuman 
ancestry. Even after birth we are little else besides, and 
before birth we were nothing more. 

He even regards the individual's life while yet in the 
bodies of his parents as superior to his life after birth, be- 
cause he considers that all perfect knowing is unconscious. 

" When we were yet unborn our thoughts kept the roadway 
decently enough; then we were blessed: we thought as every 



PA1ST-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLEE 21 

man thinks, and held the same opinions as our fathers and 
mothers had done upon nearly every subject. Life was not an 
art — and a very difficult art — much too difficult to be acquired 
in a lifetime; it was a science of which we were consummate 
masters." (Life and Habit, page 60.) 

And yet, Butler has just pointed out that unless we have 
maintained our own personal identity throughout the ex- 
periences of our forefathers, those experiences will in no 
way profit us. 

On his own showing this must be so. Equally on his 
showing it is difficult to see how it can be. For, throughout 
the entire argument the individual is identified with his 
own experiences after birth and with his own and his par- 
ents' memories before. (Their experience as individuals 
is presumably what he does not share.) All his embryonic 
experiences are " vicarious," and more vicarious his experi- 
ences further back. At the same time he is said to have 
" participated " in these experiences. The trouble is that 
when Butler talks about a man's being identified with 
his parents he does not seem to have considered all that is 
implied in identification. A is identical with B in this 
that B is identical with A. If a man is identified with 
his grandfather his grandfather must be identified with 
him. But, according to Butler, identification is a lop- 
sided affair in which A persists and B disappears, while 
everything depended upon B's persistence. So where, by 
what chink, does " he " come in ? And in what cranny 
does he lodge ? If the most that he can show for himself 
is this cellular, prenatal existence in the bodies of his 
parents and his grand-parents and of all his countless an- 
cestors, each of whom must have enjoyed precisely the 
same sort of existence in the bodies of their parents and 
ancestors, we are still no nearer the secret of his being. 
Granted that he thus participated in each and all of their 
experiences in his primordial cellular way, still the man- 
ner of his participation remains mysterious, even if we as- 



22 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

sume, as we perfectly well may, a most extraordinary ca- 
pacity for participation and for storage of experiences in 
the cell. 

How are we to imagine participation — practical and 
intelligent participation, such as will enable him to per- 
form creditably a series of complicated co-ordinated ac- 
tions as soon as he is born — without a participator % 

Butler's arguments are unanswerable. We cannot ex- 
plain or account for the most ordinary facts of our life and 
consciousness without presupposing that we have lived and 
been conscious before. 

And yet there is not one of his unanswerable arguments 
that cannot be turned against his own conception of Per- 
sonal Identity. 

Unless the Individual carried through all his previous 
experiences some personal identity over and above that of 
his progenitors, their experience will remain theirs and be 
no earthly good to him. For he could not profit by it to 
the extent he has been proved to have profited, if, at every 
stage of his past career, he had not been capable of absorb- 
ing and assimilating it — of taking it to himself. There- 
fore he must have a self, a continuous, indestructible self, 
distinct from his progenitors' selves, yet in direct commu- 
nion with them, to take it to. 

It is precisely that self, that personal identity over and 
above, that Butler denies to him. And in denying it to 
him he denies it equally to each of his progenitors all along 
the line. There is none to participate and none to profit. 
Grant him that self, and the whole process of evolution 
and the whole problem of heredity are transparent as a 
pane of glass. Deny it and we are where we were in the 
dark days of Darwinism. But, whereas Darwin and Wal- 
lace at least left us free to take what Natural Selection 
could not give us, what Butler's right hand gives us his 
left hand snatches from us again. 

It is as if Buffon and Lamarck had opened a window on 



PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLER 23 

the dark side of our house, looking towards our past. And 
it is as if Butler had found that window and cleaned it, 
and made it bigger, and called to us to look through, and 
then, in sheer perversity, had closed and darkened it be- 
fore we could look again and be sure of what we had seen. 

Without a self, over and above organism, over and 
above memory, the whole series of past memories and past 
experiences is unthinkable. 

For we start with an individual. Even if we could 
conceive him maintaining his divided identity fairly well 
in the persons of his parents, and perhaps of his grand- 
parents, what of the generations behind them? What of 
his infinite division, the scattering of him, the indivisible, 
throughout those geometrically increasing multitudes ? 

But even his pre-existences are not much more unthink- 
able than the poor and precarious existence which is all 
that Butler allows him as an individual after birth. For 
if it is not quite clear how he persisted in his parents, and 
whether anything of him persisted over and above them 
at all, there is no sort of doubt as to how his parents per- 
sist in him and in what ravaging and overwhelming pro- 
portion. 21 

Could there be a more shocking irony of fate than that 
Butler, who did more to destroy the prestige of parents 
than any writer before or after him, who so abhorred the 
idea of parentage that he resisted " the clamourings of the 
unborn " rather than commit the cruelty of giving any 
child a father however much it might desire a father — 
could there be a more shocking irony than that this great 
repudiator of parents, this passionately original and indi- 
vidual soul, should be driven by his own terrible logic to 
identify himself indistinguishably with his father and his 
mother and his grandfather and his grandmother, and so 
on backwards with all his ancestors, and that he should 
have regarded the life identified with theirs as infinitely 
richer and more important than anything that he could 



24 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

claim and call his own ? Nor could he have answered that 
he only objected to parents as individuals, for he has made 
it clear that he objected to them most emphatically as 
parents; so that this plea would only impair his logic 
without diminishing the irony of his case. 

Now, I think it can be shown that he was not really 
driven to this suicide, but that it happened to him because 
he put the cart before the horse, and attached personal 
identity to memory, and memory to organism, instead of 
attaching both to personal identity. 

All the same, as an account of the gathering together of 
memories, and of the apparent miracles of psychic syn- 
thesis performed as a matter of course by every living or- 
ganism, as a view of evolution which makes every stage in 
its process transparent as a pane of glass, Butler's theory 
is perfect. It is a clear vision of all life as one organism 
and of that organism as God. That he could not allow 
God to be anything over and above an organism, and was 
pained by the merest suggestion that he might possibly be 
more, was the logical consequence of his refusal to admit 
that the Self could be anything over and above its mem- 
ories. This consistency should not be charged too heavily 
against him. Nor can we hope to substitute anything 
clearer for that clear vision of his. 

Let us see whether we cannot keep it intact while adding 
to it the very factor that Butler left out of the account. 

The problem of the relation of psyche to organism 
would be comparatively simple if living beings descended 
from one parent. It is obvious that we are following up, 
not one thread but two threads, each of which is soon lost 
in a multiplying network of threads; and we must faith- 
fully concede the self to be present in each and all of them 
if it is to gather together the experience which will enable 
it to burst on the world as an expert in psychic and bio- 
logical behaviour. Could anything well be more unthink- 



PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLEK 25 

able than a theory which compels us to this vision of self- 
hood maintained in such a multiplicity as that % Identity 
where all identity is lost ? Were we not better off with 
the old simple idea of hereditary transmission which we 
had accepted before Samuel Butler came among us to dis- 
turb our peace ? 

Well — were we ? 

We have an idea, a vague idea, it is true, but still an 
idea of the unity of individual consciousness, of the hold- 
ing together in one synthesis of a multiplicity of states, 
and even this idea does little justice to the astounding 
complexity of that synthesis. It is identity in multiplic- 
ity with a vengeance. 

But we have no idea at all of how hereditary instincts 
are transmitted. The physical theory of the transaction 
leaves the essence of the thing — its psychic complexity — 
untouched. The idea that a complicated system of ex- 
periences can be handed over as it stands to a psyche inno- 
cent of all experiences, and used by that psyche, instantly, 
with the virtuosity of an expert, is about as thinkable as 
the idea that the Central London telegraph and telephone 
system could be handed over to and successfully worked 
by a single operator ignorant of the first principles of 
telegraphy. 

Of the two I would back the operator. 

You do not make it a bit more thinkable by regarding 
the heritage as accumulated by imperceptible increments 
from generation to generation, since in the last resort the 
whole of it has to be handed over en bloc. 

I said it would be simpler if living beings were de- 
scended each from one parent. And, as it happens, if we 
follow it far enough back, the bewildering process simpli- 
fies itself, since eventually we do trace them all to one. 

Supposing that we turn from our present and our future 
and set our faces backwards, and imagine that network of 
the generations — our generations — spread out before us 



26 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

and streaming away from us to our past, and that we hold 
the hither end of it by the single thread of self. The net- 
work is broken in many places where individuals have re- 
mained single and left no issue, and where whole families 
and species have dropped out. But, on the whole, it is a 
comparatively continuous network. If we could follow all 
the unbroken threads of all the meshes to their beginning 
on the farther end of the net, we should find them all 
united again in one thread, one single living being. A be- 
ing of extreme primordial simplicity, but not simpler or 
more primordial than our own very complicated organism 
was when it began as a single germ-plasm. 

And thus the Individual that we saw so scattered has 
become one again. Somewhere, in some time and earthly 
place, he and all the individuals he sprang from have ex- 
isted in some relation to one simple, indestructible, pri- 
mordial speck of protoplasm. 

What is the nature of that relation ? 

Only five relations are possible. 

1. We may suppose that the speck of protoplasm pro- 
duces the personality, and in reproducing itself produces 
another personality; and that reproduction of organism 
and production of personality go on till we come to repro- 
duction through the union of two primordial cells, which 
so far from altering the essential nature of the process 
only knits it tighter. This process of reproduction, which 
is what actually happens on the physical side — on the 
part of the organism — is, on the psychic side, unthink- 
able because open to all the objections which have been 
brought against the theory of transmission. That is to 
say, a personality which has been produced brand-new with 
each organism, by each organism, has ipso facto been ab- 
sent from the past experiences it is supposed to profit by. 
To say nothing of the enormous difficulty of conceiving the 
production of a psyche, a consciousness, from a speck of 



PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLEK 27 

protoplasm by a speck of protoplasm. A difficulty which 
will meet us agaiu. 

2. Or we may suppose that all the innumerable per- 
sonalities that have been and shall be are present some- 
how with or in that one original speck of protoplasm, and 
are simply transplanted with or into succeeding specks of 
protoplasm as they multiply, and are developed with the 
development of the organisms. This theory would ac- 
count all right for the sharing of the experiences, but it 
may be dismissed as putting rather too great a strain on 
one small speck of protoplasm. 

3. We may suppose that the burden of reproducing its 
own kind is borne by the self, and that it takes an even 
share in the labour of a psycho-physical association, each 
self looking after its own future development, the business 
of the protoplasm being limited to producing more proto- 
plasm and building itself up into organic forms. This 
theory ignores the influence of the organism, through 
which the self gains its experiences and therewith its de- 
velopment, and the influence of the self by which the 
organism is built into just such forms as are adapted to 
the needs and the ends of the self. We are not helped by 
any theory of the mere production of self by self. For, 
again, unless some portion of the original self endures in 
the selves it produces it cannot impart to them its own 
experience or benefit by theirs. And unless the selves — 
again — have been present with it in all its past experi- 
ence, they cannot share and benefit by it. 

4. Let us suppose, then, that the greater strain (which 
is, after all, a purely metaphysical one), is borne by this 
hypothetical self; that the self and not the protoplasm 
contains within itself all selves that are and shall be, and 
that the relation of the self to the original speck of proto- 
plasm, and to all succeeding organisms throughout all gen- 
erations, is that of the association of an undivided, unap- 



28 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

parent being with the means of its division and appear- 
ances. We have here a much more workable conception 
of the self, inasmuch as our difficulties are shifted to the 
metaphysical sphere where anything may happen. Some 
awkward things are bound to happen to an unapparent 
metaphysical being when once for all it makes up its mind 
to appear. Still, they need not be too awkward. On this 
theory the integrity of the original self must suffer 
severely if it does not endure throughout all its multiplied 
experiences, that is to say, if it is lost in the multiplicity 
of selves ; and the integrity of the selves suffers if they are 
lost in it. 

Either, then, there is no such thing as the integrity of 
the self, or : 

5. Each self is something over and above all other 
selves ; over and above its own organism and all organisms 
in which it has had part; over and above its own experi- 
ences and memories gained through association with all 
the organisms. Until they are actually born as individu- 
als the selves will be members of many groups, associated 
through the organisms they share, in such sort that the ex- 
periences and the resulting benefits are mutual. Neither 
experience nor benefit being obtainable unless we presup- 
pose in each self a " personal identity " over and above all 
other selves in its own organism. 

On this hypothesis, which I believe to be the one in 
strictest accordance with the theory of Pan-Psychism, the 
relation of self to organism will be by no means the simple 
affair of one self, one organism, but will stand somewhat 
thus. At one end of the scale, entire ownership of the 
first speck of protoplasm which it finds itself associated 
with, in the sense of one self, one organism. At the 
other end of the scale, practically entire ownership of 
the organism it is born with as an Individual. In be- 
tween, starting from below upwards, half ownership of 



PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLER 29 

two specks of protoplasm, supposing the original speck to 
have split up into two, and to have taken up with two other 
selves; ownership of one-fourth of each member of the 
next two pairs similarly formed; ownership of one-eighth 
in the four succeeding pairs, and of one-sixteenth in the 
next subdivision; and so on till his share diminishes to a 
thousand millionth part, say, in a thousand million or- 
ganisms. 

But always, through all his thousand million incarna- 
tions, his thousand million shares in other people's under- 
takings, though his experiences are scattered and sub- 
divided, he is never lost. 

He is only lost if, with Samuel Butler, we insist on 
identifying him with his business and his innumerable 
partners in the business, and ignoring his constant and 
indestructible presence. He is only scattered and divided 
if we think of him, not in his own metaphysical (or for 
the matter of that metapsychical) terms, but in terms of 
protoplasm. You might just as well think of him in terms 
of the colour that would indicate his presence in a diagram. 

As for his infinitesimal share, it is decidedly better, 
from his point of view, to hold an infinitesimal share in 
an infinitely great undertaking than to be entire owner 
of one speck of protoplasm. 

As we have seen, the most awful consequences, for the 
Individual, follow if we hold the theory of heredity pre- 
cisely as Samuel Butler held it. I do not see how they 
are to be avoided as long as we persist in identifying the 
self with its memories and with the organism by means of 
which it acquires them. On the other hand, it must be ad- 
mitted that the difficulties of the hypothesis of independent 
selfhood are great. But I do not believe them to be 
insuperable, if we bear in mind that selfhood is not neces- 
sarily interchangeable with " individuality," or numerical 
personal identity in the sense of one inhabitant of one body. 



30 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

In that sense an individual is not an individual until lie is 
born, and in any case our bodies may very likely have more 
psychic inhabitants than ourselves. 

It may be objected that on this view of the self the 
origin of its own and of all succeeding organisms looks a 
bit inadequate. But if its own original and indestructible 
germ-plasm was, as it certainly seems to have been, a suf- 
ficient organism, to begin with, for a self that has drawn 
together innumerable past memories, why should not the 
original speck of protoplasm be an organism sufficient to 
begin with for a self that harbours innumerable future 
possibilities ? If we conceive of the organism as nothing 
more or less essential to the self than its means of appear- 
ing, of manifesting itself, we do greatly simplify the prob- 
lem of their relation, that everlasting subject of contention 
for biologists and psychologists and philosophers. 

Let us think, then, of the self's relation to its organism 
as the seeking, finding, possession, and more and more per- 
fect use of a means to manifestation. Obviously, it can 
only manifest itself through its behaviour and its experi- 
ences. Instantly, then, it begins to behave and to experi- 
ence. Even at this very earliest point in its extraordinary 
career, it knows how to behave and to experience. The 
first experience of any account that comes to it is when it 
finds that the original speck of protoplasm, sufficient for a 
start, is absurdly insufficient to carry on with. (If we 
like, we may imagine that other selves, baffled by this in- 
sufficiency, have given up their protoplasms in disgust, 
but that our self is more patient and more adventurous.) 
So, in obedience to its inner urging, the speck of proto- 
plasm grows. 

But still this humble self-contained existence cannot sat- 
isfy its unquenchable longing to appear. 

And so, it compels its organism to reproduce itself, and 



PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLER 31 

the first Scattering begins. Only by scattering, by inces- 
sant subdivision, can it acquire sufficient experience and 
sufficient practice in behaviour to tit it for the life it is to 
lead, the really personable appearance it is ultimately to 
present. When the self has acquired enough animal ex- 
periences, and enough practice in animal behaviour, and an 
organism so obedient to animal promptings that it can be 
trusted to run itself without perpetual interference from 
higher authority, then and not till then, it becomes human. 
Literally, we can only do our work as men because, as 
Samuel Butler has shown, we have done all the animal 
part of it for ourselves so efficiently in the past. Just 
imagine how we should get on if, before we could cook 
our dinner and while we were eating it, we had to give our 
personal attention to each one of our visceral functions 
separately; if in order to digest we had to superintend 
our digestion, or in order to breathe we had to superintend 
our breathing. Or if in order to fight we had to see to the 
working of each separate unit of the fighting machine 
which is our body. Or if in order to write a poem (I do 
not want to labour my instances, but the case of the poem- 
writer has points of special psychological importance), if 
in order to write a poem we had to superintend each sep- 
arate operation of our hand, each separate operation of our 
brain, to turn back on our path in time to recover all our 
meanings, to travel in space to find and capture the loveli- 
ness we know. We can understand the why and wherefore 
of the process of our evolution when we reflect that all the 
selves that we have ever been, that we have put under us in 
the successive stages of our ascension, are working for us 
now, clearing up all the troublesome and boresome jobs 
we are tired of and so repudiate, and leaving us free for 
our own affairs, the work of the proud individuality we 
now are. 

Whatever he may have been and is, the scattered one does 



32 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

not and cannot appear as a complete and full-blown Indi- 
vidual until he has made up his mind once for all to gather 
himself together and be born. 

And this presumably is precisely what he has done. 
Therefore, throughout all the generations he has existed as 
want, striving, desire, will-to-live, to burst forth and be 
born. If we were puzzled about the striving of the One 
to become Many, what about this striving of the Many to 
become One ? 



ii 

The question now arises: What of his immortality? 
Is this outcome of his supreme effort his one and only ap- 
pearance as an individual ? Does he scatter himself again 
in his descendants and find his immortality only in them ? 
Has he come to nothing if he leaves no descendants ? 

Now on Butler's theory, which identifies the individual 
with his own organism and his own parents, he has no im- 
mortality of his own, only a scattered and vicarious life 
after death in the persons of his descendants (if he has 
any) ; only a subjective immortality in the memory of pos- 
terity, if he has had sufficient forcefulness to impress pos- 
terity. In fact, on Butler's theory, his chances of exist- 
ing as an individual in the first place, of ever being born 
at all, depend on circumstances over which he has no con- 
trol. For all Butler's belief that it is " the clamouring of 
the unborn " that is responsible for each individual exist- 
ence, so that the entire culpability of the enterprise rests 
with the unborn, and no child has a right to blame its 
parents if the enterprise should turn out badly, still, as the 
potential parent can and frequently does turn a deaf ear to 
the clamouring, the actual decision rests with him. And 
his refusal, or the mere accident of his death, even if he is 
well-intentioned, dooms untold millions of personalities to 
extinction. 



PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLER 33 

The individual, then, has but one chance of existence to 
several million chances of extinction, and he has no pos- 
sible prospect of any immortality that counts. And, if we 
narrow him down to his bare achievements as an individual, 
the small experience he acquires for himself in his short 
life-time, compared with his immense accumulations in the 
persons of his progenitors, doesn't really amount to a row 
of pins; so that existence itself, when it does happen to 
him, hardly seems worth the trouble of being born. Why 
all those tremendous labours of the generations for such a 
poor result? Why all those strivings and longings to be 
made manifest for such a pitiful appearance at the end? 
If you say it is all for the Race and not for the individual, 
and that the individual only exists in and for the Race, 
that doesn't make the affair a bit more intelligible or a bit 
better. 

In fact it makes it worse, for we are sacrificing a reality, 
a poor, perishing reality, but still a reality for as long as 
it lasts, to an abstraction. For what is the Race but an ab- 
straction, if it is not the sum of the individuals that com- 
pose it ? And for the matter of that, races themselves are 
doomed ultimately to extinction. 

It may be so, and if it is so we must bear it; for we 
cannot help it. But we are only driven to the conclusion 
that it is so if we accept Butler's view of personal identity, 
or the view of all those persons who, on this point at any 
rate, are agreed to agree with him. 

If it can be shown, in the first place, that the achieve- 
ments of the Individual are not quite so insignificant as 
has been made out; and in the second place, that, so far 
from personal identity being dependent on memory (and 
ultimately on organism), memory (and organism ulti- 
mately) are dependent on personal identity, to the extent 
that not the simplest fact of consciousness, and not the 
simplest operation of building up a primordial germ-cell, 
is possible without the presupposition of personal identity ; 



34 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

if further, there is even the ghost of a reason for inferring, 
in the absence of any other assignable cause, that the mys- 
terious thing we call Personality behaves as we know 
causes do and can behave, then, though immortality will 
not follow as an absolutely certain conclusion (how could 
it ?) there will at least be a very strong presumption in its 
favour. Whether there will be evidence to satisfy the 
authority whom Butler called " any reasonable person " 
is another thing. People show their reasonableness in 
such different ways. 

Even from the foregoing brief review of the latest find- 
ings of Psychoanalysis it must have been obvious that they 
are the corollary of the conclusions Samuel Butler drew 
from the processes of evolution. It is not necessary to go 
over all that old ground again in order to point out the 
correlations. The reader cannot have failed to identify 
that need or want, which Butler traces for us as the spring 
of all evolution, with the Will-to-live, the " libido " which 
the psychoanalysts have traced for us as the source of all 
life and the spring of sublimation. Only when it comes 
to the relative value of racial and individual qualities, of 
unconscious and of conscious being, do the psychoanalysts 
part company with Samuel Butler. 

First of all then, if they did not openly declare the su- 
preme importance of the individual, they showed us that 
his grown-up individuality, be its quality what it may, is 
a far more highly sublimated thing than the bundle of 
racial functions and qualities he " inherits." To say that 
I am inferior to my own grandmother, as I very well may 
be, simply means that my grandmother was the superior 
individual, that is to say that the functions and qualities 
that distinguished her from her progenitors had a higher 
sublimative value than the functions and qualities that dis- 
tinguish me, not that the functions and qualities she, in 
common with all my other ancestors, bequeathed to me are 
more highly sublimated than mine. Yet, wretched indi- 



PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEX BUTLEK 35 

vidual that I am, coarse where she was fine, most stupid 
where she was most intelligent, ungraceful and unlovely 
where she was all grace and all beauty, still, by the one fact 
that I refused to be submerged by my racial qualities and 
functions, that I lifted my head above the generations and 
added another living being, another desire, another will, 
another experience to the sum of human experiences, by 
the mere fact that, after all, here I am, playing my part 
and not any of their parts, I prove the superiority (as far 
as it goes) of my sublimation. 

Besides, if it comes to that, who is to say whether these 
undesired and undesirable traits of mine are really mine 
and not part of my " inheritance " % 

It is when I fall short of my part, when I return on my 
path and go bach to them, or when I simply refuse to grow 
up and persist in being a child, and not a very enterprising, 
or intelligent, or original child at that, it is when, in four 
words, I resign my individuality, that I become inferior. 
And the one word for it is Degeneration. 

To be degenerate is to fail to add the priceless gift of in- 
dividuality to the achievement of the race. (Therefore 
it seems an inappropriate word to apply to those very con- 
siderable individuals who have given their priceless gift in 
the form of genius, however far they may have fallen short 
of the ethics of the family and the crowd, and supposing 
this falling short to be a more frequent attribute of " true 
genius " than it actually is. We may suppose that this 
failure in one direction is the price they have to pay for 
their supremacy in another ; and posterity that benefits by 
their loss should be the last to remember it against them. 
As a matter of fact, in spite of the efforts of biographers to 
fix it firmly in its mind, posterity very seldom does remem- 
ber it at all.) And if it comes to that, what debt can the 
individual owe to the race that is greater than the debt the 
race owes to the individual ? What, after all, was the ori- 
gin of our much-valued, much-talked-about racial character- 



36 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

istics ? The instinct of self -sublimation, the desire and sub- 
sequent effort of certain enterprising individuals to outdo 
themselves, to be something that they are not yet, some- 
thing, however small, that their progenitors were not. 
Think of the enterprise (compared with foregoing enter- 
prises), the daring originality of the creature that first 
" improvised " a stomach because it wanted one. Can 
you deny an individuality, and, all things considered, a 
very startling individuality to that creature ? And to go 
back to our much-valued, much-talked-about, and possibly 
overrated progenitors, every single one of them was an in- 
dividual once ; and his value for posterity was chiefly his 
individuality ; if he only showed it in the choice he made 
of one female rather than another for his mate. Indi- 
viduals, in their successive (and successful) sublimations, 
raised the primordial will-to-live from the level of mere 
need and want, through the stages of desire, to those su- 
preme expressions of individuality — love and will. 

There is too much talk about the Eace. The race is 
nothing but the sum of the individuals that compose and 
have composed it, and will compose it. Not only so, but, 
without the individuality, the very marked and eccentric 
individuality of individuals, races and the Eace itself 
would not exist. It is the outstanding individuals, the 
" sports," that have been the pioneers of evolution. They 
have enriched and raised the species by compelling it to 
adopt their characteristics. 

And yet it looks as if in the welter of unconscious and 
subconscious memories and instincts the individual had 
little, if anything, that he could call his own. He is 
dwarfed to utter insignificance by the immensity of his 
ancestral heritage. But I do not think we have to choose 
between the views of the comparative value of the Indi- 
vidual and the Eace and the comparative amounts of 
their respective debts to each other, for we cannot separate 
them. Our problem is more fundamental. 



PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLER 37 

We have to choose between a difficult (I admit it is a 
very difficult) theory of the continuous identity of one 
self in many organisms, associated for a while with the 
equally continuous identity of many selves to one organism, 
and a self -contradictory theory which insists on continuous 
memory as the clue to the mystery of the individual's past 
evolution, and yet regards him as a momentary, insignifi- 
cant spark of consciousness struck out from the impact of 
the masses of rolled-up unconscious memories; each indi- 
vidual, in the series of generations that come together to 
form the masses, being himself such a momentary insig- 
nificant spark. At this rate continuous consciousness, that 
is to say, continuous memory, vanishes from the whole per- 
formance. 

Between difficulty and self-contradiction there can be 
only one choice. The alternative to the spark theory is not 
handicapped by any inherent contradiction. The indi- 
vidual's heritage is his, if we allow him, not only that 
" sense of need " which Lamarck and Buffon allowed him, 
and that " little dose of judgment and reason " which 
Huber claimed for his insects and Samuel Butler claimed 
for all organisms, but " a little dose " of selfhood over and 
above his sense of need, over and above reason and judg- 
ment, over and above memory. The Individual is not his 
heritage. His heritage is his. It is the stuff he works 
with and sublimates and transforms ; it is the ladder he has 
raised himself by, the territory he has conquered — or it 
is nothing. 

There is, of course, that alternative. 

Can we justify our assumption that selfhood is over and 
above ? 

Now there is a very strong consensus of opinion among 
psychologists and " mental philosophers " that Personal 
Identity does depend, and depend absolutely upon Memory. 
So strong that I have considerable qualms about putting 



38 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

forth any opinion that runs counter to that consensus. It 
is strongest among those who, like Mr. William James, M. 
Bergson, and Mr. McDougall, by no means regard mind as 
entirely dependent on its physical basis. It is upheld by 
arguments that appear at first sight to be unanswerable, 
and that on no theory should be lightly set aside. 

So far, I have been going all along on the assumption 
that we conceive Personal Identity as something which, 
whatever its ultimate nature may be, " holds consciousness 
together." We must not assume the thing we have got to 
prove; so we cannot take for granted that what we call 
Personal Identity amounts to anything we think of as a 
substance, or a self, or a soul, or as a being in any way 
separate from and independent of consciousness. For all 
we know, it may be no more than the relation of each con- 
scious state to another and to the whole. We take the 
term as equivalent to " the unity of consciousness." Con- 
sciousness certainly appears to be a unity, whether there be 
a self to make it one or no. We have nothing immediately 
before us but states of consciousness, yet they appear to 
arrive in a certain order and to hang together with a cer- 
tain cohesion of their own. Describe consciousness in 
terms deliberately chosen so as to exclude the Personality 
we must not take for granted ; say that its states are only 
fortuitously associated; still, association involves, perhaps 
I ought to say constitutes, a certain unity. Say that con- 
sciousness is nothing but a stream, and that though it ap- 
pears to have islands in it, the islands are really only part 
of the stream ; still the stream would not be a stream if it 
had not a certain unity. 

It must be borne in mind that, for all we are justified 
in saying about it beforehand, this unity may be nothing 
more than the relation of states of consciousness among 
themselves. But when we have reduced consciousness to 
the simplest, the least assuming terms, we have still this 
unity to reckon with. Even if the dream of Professor 



PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLEK 39 

Huxley came true, and the " mechanical equivalent of 
consciousness " were found to-morrow, even if conscious- 
ness were proved to be nothing but a strange illusory by- 
product of the brain, the queer spectral illusion of its unity 
would still confront us. 

And here is my opponent's main argument. How, on 
any theory of consciousness, could these appearances be 
kept up without memory? If, as impression supervened 
on impression (to take consciousness at its " lowest"), 
each were instantly effaced ; if we forgot our states of con- 
sciousness — I mean if consciousness forgot its states — as 
fast as they occurred ; that is to say, if consciousness kept 
on continually forgetting itself; if there were no sort of 
even illusory registration anywhere, what becomes of even 
that illusory unity? And what on earth becomes of per- 
sonal identity, supposing there was such a thing anyway ? 
If we could never remember anything that happened to us 
we might just as well not exist at all, for we should never 
be conscious of our existence. Personal identity may or 
may not be provable, but without memory it is unthinkable. 

I hope the adherents of memory as the presupposition of 
personal identity will not find fault with this way of put- 
ting it. I do not think it is an unfair statement of their 
position. I do not want to weaken their position in order 
to have the poor pleasure of demolishing it. It is not at 
all easy to demolish. And perhaps it is I and not they who 
are responsible for the only palpable flaw in it, the ulti- 
mate argument ad hominem; for it is clear that we might 
exist without being in the least aware of our existence ; in 
fact, that is the way most of us do exist; it may even 
be the only terms on which it is possible for us to exist 
at all. I think there is something in the point ; but let it 
pass. Let the case stand without it. Personal identity 
may or may not be provable ; without memory it is unthink- 
able. 

But — is it ? 



40 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

It may be that neither is possible, or at any rate actual, 
without the other. But thinkable ? If you can prove the 
existence of personal identity, of a self, a soul, a principle, 
call it what you like, that is conscious, but is not conscious- 
ness, that is inseparably present to all its states of con- 
sciousness and identifiable with none of them, unless it be 
with the act of will, I will undertake to " think " it. 

You say you can only prove it from consciousness, that 
is to say, from memory. Perhaps, very likely. But that 
is only saying that it is dependent on memory for its con- 
sciousness, its mode of existence, not that it is dependent 
on memory for existence itself. 

We have just seen how Samuel Butler landed himself 
in the very bosom of the progenitors he abhorred, as well 
as in a certain amount of self-contradiction, just because 
he would insist on identifying personality with memory. 
Even the " plain man " to whose common sense he was al- 
ways appealing, could have told him better than that, for 
the plain man does not place his identity in the fact 
that such and such things happened to him at such and such 
a date, but that at such and such a date they happened to 
him, to such and such a person. The whole point and 
poignancy of their happening, and of his remembering 
them, is that they happened to him, and not to another, 
and that he and not another remembered them. The plain 
man very properly assumes that he has a self, that he 
personally was present at such and such dates, that he is 
personally present to each state of consciousness as it arises, 
and to the piling up of each state on another, and to the 
whole. 

If you choose to say that he himself is only another bit 
of consciousness added to the pile — that the affirmation of 
self-consciousness comes forever and from moment to mo- 
ment to the top — that is a theory like another. But I 
do not think it is a very good theory, because it overlooks 
the fact that he was at the bottom too, and went through all 



PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLEE 41 

the layers. And most certainly the plain man would have 
none of it. 

But let us say that personal identity presupposes memory 
and is dependent on it. Then it follows rigorously that 
whenever we forget our personal identity ceases. It goes 
out for long hours together in deep sleep when we have no 
memory and no consciousness at all. And it comes to life 
again with the return of consciousness and memory. I 
am afraid I do not see anything in the theory of its inde- 
pendent existence half so unthinkable as the recurrent 
miracle of its death and resurrection. 22 Let alone 
the inconvenience of not knowing whether it is we 
who have come back and not somebody else. If you say 
we do know, because the revived memories are the same, 
and that we have no other means of knowing, the an- 
swer is that in the first place we do not know that they are 
the same, and in the second place that they are not the 
same; for even in continuous memory all we get is a suc- 
cession and a synthesis of states, a memory of a memory, 
and identity of them there is none. Sleep has so divided 
to-day's " unity of consciousness " from yesterday's that to 
talk about identity of states is absurd. So it looks as if 
memory and unity of consciousness, so far from con- 
stituting personal identity depended abjectedly upon it. 

And are we so very sure that Personal Identity is un- 
thinkable without Memory ? 

I do not mean merely inconceivable or unimaginable. I 
suppose, for that matter, we can conceive, or imagine, or 
present to ourselves any state of consciousness as existing 
independently of any other, or the whole of consciousness 
as existing without anything to u hold it together " ; in 
fact, it is in this self-sufficiency that consciousness does 
present itself immediately and before reflection. By 
ruling out all presuppositions of thinking we may and do 
conceive it so ; and many philosophers have refused to con- 
ceive it otherwise. 



42 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

In the end it must be shown that personal identity is 
more than a presupposition of our thinking, if we are to 
avoid the fallacy of concluding that what is first in thought 
is necessarily first in existence. It must be what Kant 
called a " Voraussetzung der Erfahrung," a presupposition 
of Experience, something without which experience would 
not be what it is or what it appears to be. But for the 
moment let us suppose that personal identity is unthinkable 
without memory. 

With what memories or memory did our conscious life, 
then, begin ? Say that it started with unconscious memory 
(the "heritage"). Well and good. But for conscious- 
ness that is the same thing as starting with no memory at 
all. To all intents and purposes, I, or if you prefer it, 
my conscious states, start with an absolute blank behind as 
well as before them. In this case it will be truly my body 
that remembers, and not I or they; and though its memo- 
ries will affect very profoundly my conscious states when 
they do arise out of the blank, for me or for consciousness 
they do not exist ; nor can they exist on the theory of un- 
conscious memory, or on any theory that precludes personal 
identity; that is to say, the existence of a self before 
memory. 

We saw that " the heritage " itself, the instinct, the 
knowledge made perfect through long ages of practice, all 
that we have learned to call unconscious memory, is mean- 
ingless unless it has once been conscious, and would be 
utterly useless to us if it were not our memory; we saw, 
that is to say, that our past consciousness likewise presup- 
poses personal identity, a self. 

I admit that the argument from forgotten memory cuts 
both ways. But when we consider that our conscious life, 
the life of each individual in the series, began with a for- 
getting, and that in order to know perfectly we must know 
how to forget perfectly, it looks as if the argument that 



PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLEK 43 

presupposes memory has, if anything, the more dangerous 
edge. 

And if, to avoid both edges, we turn for safety to the 
obvious alternative that memory and selfhood, or that 
memory and consciousness are neither afore nor after an- 
other, but simultaneous and mutually dependent, conscious- 
ness becoming memory before we are conscious of it, we are 
faced again with the annihilating fact of forgetting. 

All these dangers and dilemmas are avoided if we do but 
put selfhood where the plain man puts it, and where our 
everyday thinking puts it — first. 



II 

VITALISM 

I shall be reminded that dangers and dilemmas would be 
avoided much more easily and surely if we would only 
consent to put memory where the physiologist puts it — in 
the brain-cells of the organism, and leave it there. This 
would certainly be one way out, if memory were really that 
simple affair of neural association fixed into habit which 
the physiologist takes it to be. 

But does not memory presuppose two things which are 
not simple — Space and Time ? Time for the order of 
events in memory, space for their juxtaposition ? It is not 
easy to see how any set of neural associations could yield 
either. Whether as presuppositions or as forms of ar- 
rangement (schemata), they stand, as it were, between 
memory and that hypothetical self, removing memory a 
stage farther yet from its supreme place as the first. 
Memory itself is so dependent on them that we can make 
no valid statement about it that does not take them into 
account ; and it will be no use trying to show that personal 
identity is independent of memory unless we can show 
also that it is independent of space and time. 

And space and time draw with a large net. 

The view that M. Bergson has set forth in Sur les 
Donnees immediates de la Conscience and La Matiere et la 
Memoire does more to make clear the relations of Time, 
Space, and Memory than perhaps any philosophy before the 
day of Vitalism. 

This clearness is not altogether due to M. Bergson's 
metaphysical theory ; for, as we shall see, that theory lands 

44 



VITALISM 45 

him in many hopeless contradictions by the way. But his 
view of time and space does not stand or fall with his 
theory of the Elan Vital; and, whatever the ultimate des- 
tiny of Vitalism may be, no metaphysic that comes after it 
can afford to ignore M. Bergson's really very singular view. 
It is mainly owing to its author's brilliant and reckless in- 
consequence that Monism can suck advantage out of it. 
M. Bergson makes things apparently easy for himself 
at the start by letting the work of the mere intellect (in 
his own phrase) " filter through," and plunging into the 
thick of immediate consciousness. In order to preserve 
its integrity he has to break with all past conceptions of 
time as quantity, discontinuous, infinitely divisible. But 
as this idea of time as discontinuous, divisible quantity has 
an awkward way of cropping up in spite of him, he dis- 
tinguishes between Pure Time (Duree) and, as you might 
say, popular or spurious time. 

Pure Time, or Duree, is intensive, and neither divisible 
nor measurable; that is to say, it is not quantitative but 
qualitative. For Time is pure succession, and never 
simultaneity. Simultaneity is juxtaposition, and juxta- 
position is a spatial thing. 

" La duree toute pure est la forme que prend la succession de 
nos etats de conscience quand notre moi se laisse vivre." 
(Donnees immediates de la Conscience, page 76.) 

" On peut . . . concevoir la succession sans la distinction, et 
comme une penetration mutuelle, une solidarity, une organisa- 
tion intime d'elements, dont chacum, representatif du tout, ne 
s'en distingue et ne s'en isole que pour une pensee capable 
d'abstraire. Telle est sans doute done la representation qui se 
ferait de la duree un etre a la fois identique et changeant, 
qui n'aurait aucune idee de l'espace. Mais familiarises avec 
cette derniere idee, obsedes meme, par elle, nous l'introduisons 
a, notre insu dans notre representation de la succession pure; 
nous juxtaposons nos etats de conscience de maniere a les 
apercevoir simultanement, non plus l'un dans l'autre, mais Fun 
a cote de 1' autre; bref, nous projetons le temps dans l'espace, 
nous exprimons la duree en etendue, et la succession prend pour 



46 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

nous la forme d'une ligue continue ou d'une chaine, dont les 
parties se touchent sans se penetrer." (I~bid., page 77.) 

Time thus conceived is a bastard conception, due to the 
intrusion of the idea of space into the domain of pure con- 
sciousness. 

Space, in which all juxtapositions occur and no succes- 
sions, is purely quantitative, discontinuous, and divisible ; 
and this bastard time, of which clock-time is the glaring 
example, takes on all the quantitative characteristics of 
space. Past, present, and future, the time we divide into 
moments, days and years, is quantitative, is spatial. In 
pure Time there is no past, present and future, only duree, 
the past which " bites into " {qui mord sur) the present, the 
present that bites into the future. 

There are no interstices in time. 

Let us take it at that and see what happens. 

You can never say of pure Time that so much of it has 
passed, an hour, a minute or a second. This is the spuri- 
ous time which is really spatial, measured by the shadow 
on the dial, the sand in the hour-glass, the hands on the 
clock. Moreover, shadow and sand-grains and hands 
move, and movement is in space. 

This is plausible — and we shall presently see why. 

It must follow that if I beat time : turn — tumty — turn 
— turn : tumty — tumty — turn, I am really beating space. 
For, though a tumty is equal to a turn, their equality is of 
space and not of time. For all the time they take, there is 
no difference between one hundred and twenty-five tumties 
and one turn, seeing that there are no interstices in Time's 
turn where its tumties could creep in. 

In fact, time is taken by M. Bergson as a convenient 
stuffing for the interstices of space. 

And, since Time is pure succession and not simulta- 
neity, no two events can happen in the same pure Time. 
And there is no time left for them to happen in but that 
impure time which is really space. So that " Every 



yiTALISM 47 

minute dies a man, Every minute one is born " can only 
mean that the death and the birth occupy the same space ; 
which is precisely what they are not doing and cannot do. 

Then there is Pure Space, which is quantitative, meas- 
urable, infinitely divisible. Space is responsible for the 
awkward interstices we do not find in Time. And though 
we think of space as divisible, we perceive it as extended, 
that is to say, continuous. According to M. Bergson, in 
pure perception, immediate consciousness, all contradic- 
tions are solved and all difficulties overcome. Let us say, 
then, that we do actually perceive space, or at any rate 
objects in space, as extended. It is in space and space 
alone that objects can lie peaceably side by side. But I 
am afraid it follows that they cannot succeed each other, 
for succession is of Pure Time. Therefore there can be 
no movement. The movements of molecules in bodies, and 
of atoms and of electrons in ether, or wherever it is they 
do move, the course of the stars in heaven, and the long 
succession of motor buses and vans and taxis on earth, in 
the Strand, is occurring, not in the Strand, and certainly 
not in Pure Space; but where the long succession of my 
thoughts is occurring, in Pure Time. 

You see what has happened? Under M. Bergson' s 
skilful manipulation space and time have simply changed 
roles. 

For if quantitative time, in which events are simulta- 
neous, is an impure and spurious time that is really space, 
you may as well say that continuous space, in which ob- 
jects succeed each other, is an impure and spurious space 
that is really time. 

Again, M. Bergson's Pure Time is Duree, continuous 
duration. But surely duration and succession contradict 
each other every bit as much as extension and divisibility. 

I do not think that M. Bergson can be allowed, more 
than anybody else, to have it both ways. But his conten- 
tion is that in action and immediate perception which is 



48 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

based on action and on action only, you do as a matter of 
fact get it both ways. You have got it both ways before 
you have time to go back on the performance and see what 
you have got and how you have got it It is a perform- 
ance that sets at nought all mathematical laws of space 
and time and motion; that takes no account of the be- 
haviour of hypothetical electrons in a hypothetical medium. 
M. Bergson gives a reality to sensible space and sensible 
movement which he denies to mathematical space; conse- 
quently he has no difficulty in assuming " real " move- 
ment. He argues that, because differences of sensation de- 
pend on differences of movement, and because differences 
of sensation are intensive, and qualitative, and absolute, 
are of kind and not of quantity or degree, therefore move- 
ment is absolute. 

" In vain we try to base the reality of movement on a cause 
distinct from it; analysis always leads us back to movement 
itself." 

And this whether you watch the movements of objects in 
external space or are conscious of your own movements in 
muscular sensation. 

"... I touch the reality of movement when it appears to me, 
within me, as a change of state or of quality." 

Exactly as in my other sensations which are obviously 
qualitative. 

" Sound differs absolutely from silence, as also does one sound 
from another sound. Between light and darkness, between col- 
ours, between shades, the difference is absolute. The passage 
from one to the other is, also, absolutely real. I hold, then, the 
two extremities of the chain, muscular sensations in me, the 
sensible qualities of matter outside me, and neither in one case 
nor the other do I seize movement, if movement there be, as a 
simple relation: it is an absolute." (La matiere et la Memoire, 
page 217.) 

Between these two extremities M. Bergson finds the 
movements of external bodies properly so-called. And 



VITALISM 49 

you would have thought that these bodies and their move- 
ments might have given him pause. But no. Some ob- 
jects move; others remain stationary. How, he asks, can 
we distinguish between them? How can we distinguish 
between real and apparent movement here ? 

These questions he leaves unanswered. They are be- 
side the point. The question is, not how changes of posi- 
tion in the parts of matter are accomplished, but how a 
change of aspect is accomplished in the whole. 

You see what has happened? M. Bergson has shifted 
the terms of the problem from movement and immobility, 
that is to say, from that change of position which is the 
very essence of the question raised, to change of aspect of 
the whole, which was not in question. If you accept 
change of aspect of the whole, as the equivalent to change 
of position of the parts, you have committed yourself, with- 
out further argument, to the proposition that movement of 
objects in space is on all fours with my sensations of 
movement ; it is qualitative ; it is absolute. 

And the real problem, change of position, with its bur- 
den of quantitative spatial relations, of distance, and the 
rest, has been quietly burked. 

M. Bergson does not tell us how we can distinguish — 
on his theory — between stationary and moving objects, 
between real and apparent movement " here." The ques- 
tion was trembling on my tongue long before he asked it ; 
it excites still my burning curiosity. But he is not going 
to satisfy my intellectual prurience. Never shall I know 
how he squares it with a theory of movement as absolute 
and qualitative. Having demonstrated that extension or 
space, as we perceive and feel it, is continuous (" le carac- 
tere essential de l'espace est la continuity ") ; that only the 
unreal constructions of mathematics put asunder what the 
God of immediate consciousness hath joined; and that 
science is in accord with immediate consciousness in re- 
turning, after all, in spite of appearances, to the " idea of 



50 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

universal continuity" (page 219), and that all breaking 
up of matter into independent bodies with absolutely de- 
termined contours is artificial, he finds that the irresist- 
ible tendency to constitute a discontinuous material uni- 
verse comes from Life itself. 

" A cote de la conscience et de la science il y a la vie." (Page 
219.) 

" Quelle que soit la nature de la matiere, on peut dire que 
le vie y etablira deja une premiere discontinuity. . . . Nos 
besoins sont done autant de faisceaux lumineux, qui, braques 
sur la continuite des qualites sensibles, y dessinent des corps 
distinctes. lis ne peuvent se satisfaire qu'a la condition de 
se tailler dans cette continuite un corps, puis d'y delimiter 
d'autres corps avec lesquels celui-ci entrera en relation comme 
avec des personnes. Etablir ces rapports, tout particuliers entre 
des portions ainsi decoupees de la realite sensible, est justement 
ce que nous appelons vivre." (Pages 220, 221.) 

You could not have a more brilliant, nor, I believe, a 
truer picture of the evolution and behaviour of living or- 
ganisms. But it is not a metaphysic that M. Bergson 
has given us here. Unless we are to insist that the opera- 
tion of carving portions, as with a knife, out of presum- 
ably pre-existing " sensible reality " lands us in a meta- 
physic, and a bad one at that. 

What I would like to point out is that the " faisceaux 
lumineux " of our needs have taken the place of the old 
exploded " thought-relations " of idealism, the " diamond 
net " into which the universe is cast, and that while the 
function of the diamond net was to hold together, the 
function of the " faisceaux lumineux " is to break up and 
carve. 

That is to say, Life does what Thought was blamed for 
doing. It gives rise to discontinuities and distinctions 
just now declared to be unreal, contradictory and artificial. 
Vitalism may steal a horse, but idealism mustn't look 
over the hedge. 



VITALISM 51 

And now the contradictions thicken. When we carry- 
Life's operations further we are prolonging vital move- 
ment and turning our backs on true knowledge (page 221). 
Yet it is science that exacts this prolongation, and in the 
process " the materiality of the atom dissolves, more and 
more, under the gaze of the physicist." (Page 221.) 

We have Life itself aiding and abetting him by starting 
the disastrous process which represents, for M. Bergson, 
" an ordinary form of useful action mal a propos trans- 
ported into the domain of pure knowledge." (Page 221.) 

Why mal a propos? If it belongs to the domain of pure 
knowledge, it belongs; if it does not belong, we have no 
grounds for complaint ; and anyhow Life began it. 

However, the further the process is carried into that 
domain, the more the physicist is forced to renounce all 
hypotheses of solid atoms, of bodies formed of solid atoms, 
and of real 'contacts between bodies — of such a universe, 
in short, on which we have " most manifestly a grip." 

" Why do we think of a solid atom and why of shocks ? Be- 
cause solids, being bodies on which we have most manifestly a 
grip are those which interest us most in our relations with the 
external world, and because contact is the only means of which 
we can apparently dispose in order to bring onr body into action 
upon other bodies. But very simple experiments show that there 
is never real contact between two bodies which move each other ; 
besides, solidity is far from being a state of matter absolutely 
cut and dried. Solidity and shock, then, borrow their apparent 
clarity from the habits and necessities of practical life — images 
of this kind do not throw any light on the ultimate nature 
(fond) of things." (Page 222.) 

These considerations, far from leading M. Bergson to 
suspect that both in practical life and in the hypotheses 
of pure knowledge we are dealing with appearances, far 
from throwing doubt on the absolute reality of that time 
and space movement of which we have immediate con- 
sciousness, confirm him rather in his view that here, if 
anywhere, is the absolutely real world. 



52 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

And so, while nothing can bridge for him the gulf be- 
tween this reality and pure knowledge — his whole phi- 
losophy is based on this distinction — we have the apparent 
contradiction that it is life, desire, action, the very things 
held to be most manifestly " real," that are responsible 
for the work of division, which, on the theory that life 
puts together and thought divides, should belong to the 
intellect. 

And on the very next page we are told, indeed, that, 
while science tends to dissolve it more and more into 
forces and movements, the atom " will preserve its indi- 
viduality for our mind that isolates it " ; the only atom 
which science knows being, to Faraday, " a centre of 
forces," each atom occupying " the whole of space to 
which gravitation extends," and " all the atoms interpene- 
trating each other " ; while, according to Professor Thomp- 
son, it is " ( a ring of invariable form, whirling round and 
round in a perfect, continuous, homogeneous and incom- 
pressible fluid which fills space.' " (I am translating 
M. Bergson's translation of Faraday and Professor 
Thompson.) And, M. Bergson, caught between continu- 
ity and discontinuity, and committed to the theory that 
the difference between all qualities is absolute, while con- 
fronted by the view of science and of common sense that 
movements go on independently of us in space, which he 
admits to be quantitative, concludes that " real " move- 
ment is the " transport of a state rather than of a thing '* 
(page 225). 

There will, however, owing to that admission, still be 
an irreconcilable difference between quality and pure 
quantity, between the world of our " heterogeneous " sen- 
sations and the world of " homogeneous " movements in- 
dependent of our sensations, unless it can be shown that 
differences between " real " movements are more than 
quantitative — that real movements are " quality itself." 



VITALISM 53 

To this hopeful idea of real movement as quality M. 
Bergson takes his flight. 

Let us say, then, that " real " movement is quality and 
see what happens. All differences of movement, differ- 
ences in direction, distance and velocity, will then be quali- 
tative, absolute. There can be no degrees between ap- 
proach and distance and between fast and slow. We are 
compelled to think of fastness and slowness, and of dis- 
tance and of approach and flight in terms of absolute, ir- 
reducible moments. A strange doctrine this for a philoso- 
pher who insists on the continuity of real space and real 
movement and of real or pure perception. I said " com- 
pelled to think " ; but this is not an affair of the compul- 
sions of our thinking; when you come to quality it is an 
affair of immediate perception and of life itself. And 
this " absoluteness " of quality makes, not for continuity, 
but for discontinuity, as far as " external realities " are 
concerned. 

True, M. Bergson distinguishes between this qualitative 
" real " movement and the movement which is the subject 
of mechanics. But when it comes, as it must come, to the 
relation between the two we are faced with another diffi- 
culty. The movement which is the subject of mechanics 
" is nothing but an abstraction, or a symbol, a common 
measure, a common denominator, which permits compari- 
son of all real movements among themselves/' (Pages 
225, 226.) (The italics are not M. Bergson's.) 

Now how, in heaven's name, can movement, thus de- 
clared to be purely quantitative, serve as a common meas- 
ure and common denominator of all movements declared 
to be purely qualitative ? In movement, as such, not even 
immediate consciousness, the all-reconciler, can discern 
the ghost of absolute quality. Not until you (and sci- 
ence) have translated movement into terms of energy, into 
intensity, which is quality again, can you escape from 



54 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

quantity. Nor can you altogether escape it here, since 
science presupposes amounts of energy and degrees of in- 
tensity which immediate perception knows nothing of. 
Not even in the interests of Vitalism should we confuse 
those " absolute " qualities, those immeasurable intensi- 
ties of sensation which accompany the putting forth of 
energy with the measurable intensities of energy itself. 

In the same way the movements of our bodies are at- 
tended by muscular sensations and sensations of freedom 
and well-being which are purely qualitative, but, I think, 
we have no business to argue from them to the quality of 
movements. 

But to return to these real and qualitative movements 
of which quantitative movements are the common measure 
and denominator. Looked at in themselves (envisages 
en eux-memes) they are 

" indivisibles which occupy duration, presuppose a before and 
after, and bind together the successive moments of time by a 
thread of variable quality, which," M. Bergson says, " should 
not be without some analogy with the continuity of our own con- 
sciousness. ... If we could draw out this duration, that is to 
say, live in a slower rhythm, should we not see, in proportion as 
this rhythm slowed down, colours fading and lengthening out 
into successive impressions, still no doubt coloured, but more 
and more ready to merge in pure vibrations (ebranlements) % " 
(Page 226.) 

That is to say (unless the brilliance of M. Bergson's 
style blinds me to his meaning), that those differences in 
the movements of molecules, differences of which I am not 
immediately conscious, by determining the qualities of my 
sensations, of which I am immediately conscious, take on 
continuity and quality, so that their world, the world of 
" unreal " vibrations, reflects in some sort the continuity 
of consciousness. 

We have seen that M. Bergson uses time as stuffing for 
the interstices of space. We now see him using qualities 



yiTALISM 55 

of sensation as stuffing for the interstices of movement, 
which is as good as a confession that he can no more get 
continuity out of his " real " movements than he can out 
of any other movements. And his adroit suggestion of 
" some analogy " does not disguise the essential truth of 
the matter, that from first to last it is the continuity of 
consciousness that has done the trick. 

What are we to make of a theory which seems, now, our 
only clue to the very heart and secret of reality, and now 
a splendid mass of incoherences ? We have the " real " 
movements of which M. Bergson has just said that the 
movements known to mechanics are the common measure 
and denominator; we know that the laws of physics are 
based on those very laws of mathematics which are not 
real in M. Bergson' s sense of reality, being the work of 
the intellect that divides ; we have the qualities — sensa- 
tions of which we are told that they are absolute, that is to 
say, irreducible as any atom; and we have movements 
which, but for the quality which is called in to stop their 
gaps, would be as discontinuous as space itself. And with 
these irreducibles M. Bergson builds up his certainty. 

And the Elan Vital does not help him, since it began 
the whole business of defining and dividing, of burrowing 
and digging holes, as it were, in real space and drawing the 
contours of bodies to suit its own purposes. 

And supposing we were justified in transferring the 
quality of sensations to the molecular movements to which 
we are obliged to refer them, quantity being thus trans- 
formed into quality, the common quantitative measure and 
the common denominator would no longer apply. 

What M. Bergson does not appear to admit is that all 
space, even a real space," may be an intellectual construc- 
tion ; that there is no perception of extension so immediate 
as not to presuppose it, so pure as not to include it ; that, 
as the work of thought, it is as discrete or as continuous as 
thought pleases, that is to say, it may be both; and that, if 



56 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

it were continuous only, as continuous as the real space of 
M. Bergson's immediate perception, it would be no less 
quantitative on that account. 

I do not want to dispute M. Bergson's conclusions: 
that matter is the vehicle and plastic tool of the Elan 
Vital; that pure remembrance is a spiritual manifes- 
tation; and that with memory we are actually in the 
domain of spirit. These are precisely the conclusions to 
which I believe the balance of the biological and psycho- 
logical argument inclines. But I do not see that these con- 
clusions are supported by a theory which begins and ends 
in metaphysical dualism, that tries to establish " reality " 
on the far from stable ground of action plus immediate 
perception, and that, in spite of having coolly let " filter 
through " every consideration inimical to its argument, 
lands itself in perpetual contradictions in its efforts to 
escape from the position it has created for itself. 

For, while it takes its stand on action and immediate 
perception as alone affording the clue to the Real, and 
asks us to suppose such absurdities as that homogeneous 
space is logically posterior to "material things and the 
pure knowledge that we have of them " — knowledge that 
it declares, four pages later on, to be tainted with the 
impurity of the sensations, " qui s'y melent " (Page 262) 
— and that extension precedes space (Page 258), at the 
same time, we are to suppose that it is this very same 
homogeneous space that " concerns our action and our 
action alone." (Page 258). 

M. Bergson's aim is to escape the pitfalls of Realism 
and Idealism alike, to " resoudre les contradictions," to 
" faire tomber P insurmontable barriere," and at the same 
time to " rejoindre la science." 

He finds a common error in the realism of the vulgar 
herd that takes for granted a world of things existing 



VITALISM 57 

plump and plain outside and independent of any conscious- 
ness, and the realism of Kant that presupposes a Thing- 
in-itself independent of and inaccessible to consciousness: 
" Tune et l'autre dressent l'espace homogene comme une 
barriere entre l'intelligence et les choses." (Page 258.) 

You wonder why Kant should be lumped with the vulgar 
realist when he made of homogeneous space and of time, 
not barriers erected, but forms of the intelligence for the 
co-ordination of the data of sense. 

The common error is that both realists made space a 
condition a priori of experience; whereas immediate per- 
ception has no a priori elements, nothing is afore or after 
another; but our experience, consisting mainly and pri- 
marily of action, so to speak, gathers space and time with 
it as it goes along. Space and time will thus be " given " 
with the sensations, co-ordinated by means of them. It is 
not quite clear whether M. Bergson means that sensations 
occur ready co-ordinated in space and time, and that our 
perception reflects, as it were, the given co-ordination, or 
whether it is we who co-ordinate as we go along. From 
his theory of perception co-ordination (of objects in 
space) would seem to be given ; from his theory of action 
that we co-ordinate would follow. Anyhow, co-ordination 
proceeds hand-in-hand with experience, and is not pro- 
vided for it beforehand. 

The shipwreck of Idealism, rather, is in " the passage 
from the order which appears for us in perception to the 
order which succeeds for us in science." (Page 253). 
And Idealism and Realism proceed from a common error, 
in that, on both theories, " conscious perception and the 
conditions of conscious perception are directed towards 
pure knowledge, not towards action." (Page 258.) 

Here M. Bergson, and the great body of modern philoso- 
phy with him, part company with the metaphysics of the 
past. He has put his finger on the weak spot of all the 



58 A DEFENCE OE IDEALISM 

transcendent theories — their neglect of action ; " tou- 
jours elles negligent le rapport de la perception a Faction 
et du souvenir a la conduite." (Page 254.) 

Let us see how a philosophy fares that is directed to- 
wards action and action alone. 

In order to escape Realism and Idealism M. Bergson 
identifies perception with " preparation for our action," 
having " laisse filtrer," the work of intellect, its logical 
constructions and presuppositions and the account that 
science gives us of the real or assumed action of external 
things, on the grounds that thought-relations and " real " 
action are not given in immediate perception ; hut, having 
decided that pure perception is concerned with action and 
with action alone, and that " the body is an instrument of 
action and of action only," he has less difficulty than might 
have been supposed in establishing the correspondence be- 
tween perception and cerebral states. 

Yet we find in this correspondence that the cerebral 
state is " neither the cause nor the effect, nor in any sense 
the duplicate," but simply the " continuation " of percep- 
tion ; perception being " our virtual action and the cerebral 
state our action begun." (Page 260.) It is a "corre- 
spondence " and yet it is a " continuation." It is a con- 
tinuation of perception and yet not perception itself. 

Now the only way in which one thing can be the con- 
tinuation of another without being that thing itself is for 
it to be an effect of that thing, the cause passing over into, 
that is to say, continuing in the effect. And yet this con- 
tinuation-cum-correspondence of perception is not its effect. 

And this perception — already doubly tainted by iden- 
tification with our virtual action of which our body is the 
instrument, and the action of " things " upon the instru- 
ment — is what M. Bergson calls " pure." 

And the taint does not end there. This theory of pure 
perception must be " attenuated and completed." Pure 
perception is mingled, further, with affections (sensa- 



VITALISM 59 

tions) and recollections (memories). We have to "re- 
store to body its extension and to perception its duree," 
to a reintegrate in consciousness its two subjective ele- 
ments, affectivity and memory." (Page 260.) 

We have seen what has happened to extension and 
duree. We have now to see what happens to perception 
and memory. M. Bergson, plunging into the very thick- 
ness of experience, starts with the extremely one-sided 
proposition that our body is an instrument of action and 
of action only. The true role of perception is to prepare 
actions. Perception is 

" nothing but selection. It creates nothing ; its role, on the con- 
trary, is to eliminate from the ensemble of images all those on 
which I should have no hold; then, from among the images re- 
tained, to eliminate all which have no interest for the needs of 
the image I call my body." (Page 255.) 

" The body is a centre of action and of action only. In no 
degree, in no sense, under no aspect does it serve to prepare, 
still less to explain, a representation ... all in our perception 
that can be explained by the brain are our actions begun, or 
prepared or suggested, and not our perceptions themselves." 

So much for perception. 

When it comes to memory, the body preserves motor 
habits capable of bringing the past again into play; also, 
by " repetition of certain cerebral phenomena which pro- 
long ancient perceptions, it will furnish to remembrance 
a point of attachment with the actual, a means of recon- 
quering a lost influence over present reality." (Pages 
251, 252). 

We might ask how cerebral phenomena can " prolong " 
what they have never been concerned with. But let that 
pass. We shall be involved in still more serious contra- 
dictions before we have done with this theory of percep- 
tion as a preparer of actions only. We are not quite sure 
whether we are to suppose that the function of perception 
is not to perceive, or whether it is to perceive only those 
things that make for action. 



60 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

" Here/' says M. Bergson, " is my body with its c per- 
ceptive centres.' These centres are shaken and I have a 
representation of things. On the other hand, I have sup- 
posed that these shakings can neither produce nor translate 
my perception. It is, then, outside them. Where is 
it ? " M. Bergson has no hesitation in deciding that it is 
" in " material objects. My perception " ne peut etre que 
quel que chose de ces objets eux-memes; elle est en eux 
plutot qu'ils ne sont en elle." His grounds for this view 
of perception are that in " posing " his body he " poses " 
a " certain image " and with it " the totality of other 
images " ; because his body has its place in this assembly 
he concludes that his perception must be there also. 

And though the body and its cerebral shakings have 
nothing whatever to do with his perception, which exists 
outside them (can he mean as an independent object in 
space ?), the unique role of these shakings is to prepare the 
reactions of his body and to sketch out his possible actions 
(" actions virtuelles "). Lest we should conclude rashly 
that in this case the roles of the cerebral shakings and of 
perception are one and the same, he tells us that perception 
consists in detaching from the ensemble of objects — not 
particular objects or groups of objects but " the possible 
action of my body on them." (Page 255.) 

So that, whatever else it may be, the primary function 
of perception is not to perceive. 

Perception, therefore, is selection. 

Now this is surely giving a somewhat incomprehensible 
and contradictory account of a complex but perfectly in- 
telligible performance. Because perception, in addition 
to its obvious function of perceiving — of being aware of 
— and its less obvious and possibly disputable function of 
posing its own objects, has a distinct reference to action, 
just as it has a distinct reference to appetite and love and 
aesthetic emotion and moral attitudes and intellectual in- 
terest and cosmic rapture and mystic passion and every 



VITALISM 61 

conceivable mode of conscious experience, because both 
attention and intention play a part in determining what 
perceptions shall dominate our experience, making all al- 
lowances for the part they play, we are still not justified 
in contending that perception is nothing but selection with 
an exclusive reference to action. 

And it is the same with memory. Its primary func- 
tion is " to evoke all past perceptions which have analogy 
with some present perception, and to recall to us what went 
before, and what followed after, and thus to suggest to us 
the most useful decision among possible decisions." 
(Page 254.) True, this is not all. M. Bergson distin- 
guishes between physical memory, which is an affair of 
motor habit associations, and " pure " memory. Pure 
memory holds together " in one unique intuition the mul- 
tiple moments of duree, it disengages us from the move- 
ment of the flux of things, that is to say, from the rhythm 
of necessity." But this unique intuition again has a pri- 
mary reference to action. " The more memory serves to 
contract these movements into one, the more solid the grip 
on matter that it gives us ; so that the memory of the living 
being seems to measure beforehand the power of its action 
on things and to be nothing but the intellectual repercus- 
sion of it." (Pages 254-255.) 

After all, pure memory is not so very pure. Like pure 
perception, it is tied and fettered to action of which alone 
our bodies are the instrument. 

" Observe," M. Bergson says, " the position we thus 
take between realism and idealism." 

We do observe it. We observe that in the interests of 
the Elan Vital, M. Bergson has ignored everything in con- 
sciousness that does not bear upon action ; and that, in 
consequence of his wholesale rejections, his position is be- 
tween the devil and the deep sea. The deep sea holds all 
the " relations " that he has let filter through ; not only 
those despised ones which are the logical framework of 



62 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

the actual, but those which science reveals as part and 
parcel of the real; and the devil has run away with the 
possibilities of sensation and the " intermediary percep- 
tions " which have " escaped " him. 

But, however irrelevant they may be to M. Bergson's 
action, however slender their " grip " on matter, they are 
not destroyed. The devil and the deep sea still wait for 
the thinker who denies them. 

" Supposing that my conscious perception has an end 
(destination) which is altogether practical, that in the en- 
semble of things it emphasizes (dessine) only those which 
interest my possible action on them : I understand that all 
the rest escapes me, and that all the rest, nevertheless, is 
of the same nature as that which I perceive." (Page 
257.) 

How do I, how can I know this if " all the rest " has 
" escaped " me ? 

In order to suppose that conscious perception has " une 
destination toute pratique," I have had to suppose a lot of 
things besides : that " homogeneous space is not logically 
anterior but posterior to material things and to the pure 
knowledge that we have of them; that extension precedes 
space, . . . that homogeneous space concerns our action 
and our action only, being like an infinitely divided band 
that we hold below the continuity of matter in order to 
make ourselves masters of it, to break it up in the direc- 
tion of our activities and of our needs." (Page 258.) 

This is all very well as long as we are considering the 
psychology of animals and babies, whose adventures in 
space and experiments in action are neither delayed nor 
hampered by considerations of the logically anterior; but 
it is to ignore immense departments of adult psychology, 
and it is not what is meant by a metaphysic. If it were, 
if what is first in experience were first in reality, why not 
start at once with the human embryo or the protozoon? 
Why bother about human psychology at all? Only you 



VITALISM 63 

ought to know exactly what you are doing. If you may 
light-heartedly " laisser filtrer," everything that makes 
Realism what it is, plus everything that makes Idealism 
what it is, on the one hand, the " real " space of mathe- 
matics on which all the laws and conclusions of physics 
are based, on the other hand all psychic and logical pro- 
cesses which have no immediate relation to action, of which 
action is not the object and the aim, this is indeed to 
escape both Realism and Idealism ; it is to escape all meta- 
physics ; but it is hardly to " resoudre les contradictions," 
or to " f aire tomber les insurmontables barrieres," or to 
" rejoindre la science." 

But, when criticism has shown up all its weak points, it 
remains a superb attempt to reduce the phenomena of con- 
sciousness, with all its multitudinous references and loves 
and interests to a unity which shall not leave life and 
action out of the account. For it is true that in action, 
in life taken in the thick as it is lived, we do get a fusion 
of perception and of memory and interest and will, of 
time and space, in a continuity and oneness which knows 
nothing of the contradictions, the dilemmas, the pre- 
suppositions, the infinite dividings and limitings of the 
intellect. 

It is no less true that neither Life nor action in itself 
will deliver the secret of that fusion and that continuity. 

In the very effort to escape those contradictions and 
dilemmas M. Bergson has added to them those special 
contradictions and fallen into those special dilemmas of 
his own which I have just tried to make clear. 

And what has happened to M. Bergson is what happens 
to every philosopher who is out looking for his unity in 
the wrong place. That is to say, he has put Pure Time 
before the Self. He has given to Time that special form 
of continuity, the duration that belongs only to a self. 
He has made Pure Time in which action happens the be- 
ginning that it cannot be, and thus brought it again under 



64 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

all the categories of spurious time. To avoid the pitfalls 
that await him as the result of his rash choice in priori- 
ties, he has transferred all the contradictions and dilemmas 
of spurious time to space, in the evident hope that they 
will find reconciliation and solution there. Moreover, to 
escape the net of illusion he has thus prepared for himself, 
he gives to space — which he has identified with spurious 
time — the purity and reality he denies to spurious time. 
He is bound to do this in the interests of that " outside 
world " which is the playground of the Elan Vital — that 
is to say, in the interests of that ultimate dualism in which 
Vitalism begins and ends. 

But he has shown us that time and space are correla- 
tives, and that neither is to be thought of without the other, 
that they work in and out of each other and play into each 
other's hands. We are aware, both of the position of 
objects in space and of the movement of objects from point 
to point in space, which is as it were a sort of succession 
in space. We are aware, both of the succession of events 
in time and of their simultaneity, which is as it were a 
sort of stationariness in time. But it is neither space in 
itself nor time in itself which is holding objects together. 
With pure space alone you will never construct a synthesis 
of objects in space, nor with pure time alone a synthesis 
of events in time ; but if either construction is to be valid 
and intelligible a synthesis must be made of both. 

And that construction and that synthesis, if it is to be 
at all, will depend in the last resort on personal identity, 
on an unchanging self. 

On any theory except that of the " mechanical equiva- 
lent," the construction and the synthesis will be made in 
the last resort in consciousness, whether it repeats or 
whether it corresponds with the arrangements of the inde- 
pendent " Real," or whether construction and synthesis in 
consciousness is all the construction and synthesis there is. 

For, if the self changed to each member of a final syn- 



VITALISM 65 

thesis, or to each member of an incomplete and provisional 
synthesis, if it changed to each term of the intricate system 
of relations within each synthesis — to all the multitudi- 
nous changing events in time, to all the multitudinous 
changing objects in space — if it had no unity and no dura- 
tion, there would not only be no final synthesis, but no 
synthesis anywhere at all. 

There would, obviously, be no time, and (not quite so 
obviously) no space. Certainly no perception of space. 

And this is positively the last opportunity for the up- 
holders of the superior necessity and priority of Memory. 
They may say, with the most perfect obviousness : Much 
more obviously there would be no time and no perception 
of space without memory. 

For, if time is the form of inner perception, and space 
is the form of outer perception, is not memory the syn- 
thesis of both ? 

But is it? Could it be? Because memory holds to- 
gether all remembered objects in space and all remembered 
events in time, does it follow that it is responsible for the 
synthesis of time and space taken together? Or for the 
entire synthesis under each head ? 

It would not be possible unless all consciousness, and 
time and space themselves, were nothing but memory. 
But what of the original synthesis — the perception of 
objects in space ? What of the perception of the first 
member of a series in time ? Because they have been 
buried under layers upon layers of repeated images that 
are memories you cannot say that there never was any 
original synthesis, never any perception of a first member 
of a series. And we are continually confronted with new 
arrangements of old material, new successions in time, new 
juxtapositions in space, and though the material is old, 
recognized, therefore, and remembered as much as per- 
ceived, the synthesis is new. The new perceptions, the 
new synthesis escape for ever the net of memory. 



66 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

What then holds perception and memory together ? 

And is it more truly memory or the Self that makes us 
" seize in one unique intuition the multiple moments of 
duration, frees us from the movement of the flux of things, 
from the rhythm of necessity " % 



Ill 

SOME ULTIMATE QUESTIONS OF 
PSYCHOLOGY 

In what, then, does Individuality consist? Not in our 
memories, even supposing that they are pure, for we have 
seen that they presuppose us. Not in our individual ex- 
periences, in the fact that such and such things hap- 
pened to us and to nohody else; for this is to plant our 
individuality outside ourselves in precisely those events 
over which it has least control. Besides, we have no 
reason to suppose that our experience is unique and every 
reason to suppose the contrary. Still, when we reflect, we 
do suppose it, in the sense, not that our experiences are in 
any way extraordinary, but that precisely this order and 
arrangement of experiences which we call ours has never 
occurred before. 

But no possible arrangement of experiences will yield 
or make recognizable a self that is not presupposed in the 
arrangement and has had no hand in it. We have a sense 
of individuality ; we find, if we look for it, that we have a 
sort of self-feeling. I do not mean self -consciousness. I 
am not thinking of our general feeling of possessing a body, 
a feeling which is made up of muscular sensations more or 
less insistent, and of visceral sensations more or less vague. 
I am not thinking of what is called feeling-tone, 23 for this 
may differ, if not from moment to moment, from day to 
day, or even from hour to hour. All these feelings which 
come to us through our bodies help our sense of individu- 
ality. But I am thinking of something more akin to 

memory, of that feeling which is not memory but which 

67 



68 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

accompanies it and gives it the quality which makes it 
ours, saturating it like a perfume, staining it like a colour, 
always recognizable as the same perfume and the same 
stain. To place our individuality in self-feeling is so far 
satisfactory that it does at least attempt to explain why our 
memories are recognizable as ours. It is as if we scented 
ourselves out all along our track. I may say I do not 
know whether my experience is really mine, or whether I 
am simply part of an experience labelled mine for con- 
venience' sake; or, granting that I am I, I still do not 
know from moment to moment whether I am the same self, 
or whether another self arises on the top of me and takes 
possession of my memories ; but I do know that something 
reacts with the same feeling to all my memories all along 
the line, that it is reacting now to the contents of my im- 
mediate consciousness, and that when I dream I shall find 
it in my dreams ; and I take it that this something either 
is me, or involves somewhere a continuous and not a dis- 
crete me. 

Does self -feeling yield the secret of individuality ? 

No. Self -feeling helps to fix our floating sense of in- 
dividuality, and so far justifies us in calling it self -feeling ; 
and no doubt it enters largely into the building up of the 
superstition of the self. But our sense of individuality is 
one thing and the existence of the self another. Mere self- 
feeling goes no way towards proving that the self is more 
than a superstition. Self-feeling, though a fairly contin- 
uous accompaniment of memory, is vague; and from its 
peculiar vibrant emotional quality we may suspect it to be 
nothing more than a sort of general reverberation of the 
memories themselves. Even if it be something more than 
that, it is something that accompanies consciousness and 
not anything that could conceivably bind it together and 
make it one. And if Personal Identity is nothing more 
than such an accompaniment it will fare no better than if 
it were nothing more than memory. 



SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 69 

But what about that peculiar vibrant and emotional 
quality we noted % This accompaniment of self -feeling is 
not always the same. It has degrees of intensity; it at- 
taches itself more to some memories than others ; it is 
stirred to a stronger glow by some associations than by 
others. It seems to know and to remember almost " on 
its own." It, then, has preferences. In short, self-feel- 
ing, this indestructible haunter of memories, has about it 
more than a suggestion of the Will-to-live in its aspect of 
interest and desire. 

Are we to say, then, that the secret of Personal Identity 
and Individuality is to be found in Will ? 

This certainly seems to bring us nearer to the root of 
the matter. And it has the advantage of being definitely 
thinkable as antecedent to experience, and therefore to 
memory, and of being traceable in the lowest conceivable 
germ of Personality — the will-to-live, the need to appear, 
to grow, to reproduce the self, to gather experience and 
appear more and more. In a sense it is the stronghold of 
individuality. Eor it is with his will that the individual 
fences himself off and asserts himself against other indi- 
viduals. It is with his will, in the form of interest and 
love, that he draws near to them and is drawn, and so 
makes his personality greater through theirs and theirs 
through him. And at every stage of his biological ascen- 
sion it is his will that is the mainspring of his sublima- 
tions. It is through his will, through his need, want, de- 
sire, interest, affection, love, that he appears as self-deter- 
mined. 

It is his will as energy that, whether in resistance or 
obedience, knits him to the forces of the " real " world 
outside himself. 

It is his will that in submitting or aspiring, in adora- 
tion or in longing, links him to the immanent and tran- 
scendent Reality that he calls God. 

The perfect individual is the person perfectly adapted 



70 A DEFENCE OE IDEALISM 

to reality through the successive sublimations of his will. 
It is clear that the will of such a creature is not, any 
more than his perception or his memory, concerned with 
action only. 

Before we go farther let us take stock of our results so far. 

We have refused to identify the self entirely with its 
own memories, to find the secret of personality in the fact 
that such and such experiences have been ours ; for this is 
to plant our personality outside, in extraneous and prob- 
ably accidental happenings, without taking account of its 
interior reactions ; besides begging the possible question of 
its existence. 

We found a faint aroma of selfhood in the self-feeling 
that accompanies consciousness; and though this may be, 
and very probably is, due to some inner working of a self, 
and though it has a warmth and intimacy that we look for 
in vain in what we call " self -consciousness,' ' it was. not 
comprehensive enough for us to hope to find in it the secret 
of selfhood. 

So far as that secret is discoverable at all, we seem to 
find it in the Will. The will seems to us at once the most 
ancient, the most comprehensive, and the most intimately 
self-revealing of the powers of self. It seems the surest 
and the most conspicuous bridge from the inner to the 
outer world. Also we have seen every reason for suppos- 
ing that processes and actions which are now involuntary 
and unconscious were once conscious and willed; we had 
even some reason for supposing that the very machinery 
of such processes may have been built up gradually under 
the impulse of the will; that the will, working through 
countless generations, may be itself the builder and the 
engineer of our bodily and mental machinery. 

We considered the theory of Vitalism, with its assump- 
tion of Matter as an independent outside solid substance 
offering itself to the " grip " of Spirit and carved by our 



SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 71 

needs as by a knife. We found that this theory, and its 
attempt to base perception and memory upon action only 
ends in contradiction and dilemma; and we concluded 
that to refer will likewise to action only is to ignore the 
actual range of desire and interest and love. 

So wide is that range that we might well rest in the con- 
clusion apparently forced on us that the will is the Self. 

And yet, if we were to put our conclusion to the test, we 
should find that, though it has served us so far infinitely 
better than self-feeling and memory, though, so to speak, 
there is more self in will than in memory or self -feeling, it 
still falls short of complete selfhood; because, though in- 
timate and comprehensive — more intimate than either 
memory or self -feeling — it is not comprehensive enough ; 
not nearly so comprehensive, in fact, as memory. It will 
not give us the synthesis we want ; the synthesis of all our 
states of consciousness, itself included; so far as will is a 
state of consciousness at all. 

That is to say, so far as consciousness includes states 
which are not states of willing, but states of feeling, per- 
ceiving, remembering, conceiving, judging, reasoning and 
imagining, the unity of consciousness cannot be found in 
Will. 

We have now three alternatives. A complete irreconcil- 
able dualism between Will and Idea : a dualism that may 
fall " outside " consciousness, between the Will as the Un- 
conscious and consciousness as the Idea ; or that mav fall 
" inside " consciousness itself, in which case it is all 
up with the unity of consciousness; or a partal dualism 
within consciousness, which allows of the interpenetration 
of Will and Idea, and of interaction between them, without 
necessarily admitting selfhood as the unity of all conscious 
states. 

(These two forms of dualism will face us equally, 
whether we regard consciousness as a by-product of the 



72 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

physical mechanism, or as wholly or partially independent 
of it.) 

Or there is a unity of selfhood, of personal identity, 
prior to consciousness as its condition, or arising with it, at 
any rate, in no sense arising from it, a unity in which alone 
Will and Idea can be held together. 

For it may be argued — it is argued with extreme 
plausibility — that Will and Idea are in no more awkward 
position than any other two states of consciousness con- 
sidered out of relation with each other; and that when 
they are taken in relation, the very relations themselves 
provide all the plaster necessary to stick them together; 
that this will hold good whether the relations are regarded 
as thought relations in consciousness, or as " real " rela- 
tions outside it ; that if these relations do not and cannot 
bind, there is no conceivable unity that, added to them, will 
do their binding for them; while if they do bind that is 
enough ; it is at any rate all we have any right to ask. For 
instance, will and idea come together and are sufficiently 
held together in purpose or design. Thus the unity of 
selfhood is either powerless or superfluous. 

This argument is much more formidable than it looks at 
first sight. So formidable that it can only be dealt with 
later on when we are considering the ultimate questions 
of metaphysics. For the moment our problem is psycho- 
logical. 

Needless to say, the hypothesis of unity is thoroughly in- 
compatible with the mechanical by-product theory of con- 
sciousness, and does not necessarily " go with " the partial 
independence theory in itself. 

Now I have tried to make it clear under separate heads 
that personal identity is not memory, is not self -feeling, is 
not will ; but it may be just possible that this disposing of 
under separate heads was the secret vice of my whole pro- 
cedure, and that, though the self cannot be any one of the 
three, it may very well be all three taken together. Per- 



SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 73 

sonal identity, the self, the unity of consciousness may be 
the sum of our states of consciousness taken together, and 
it may be nothing more ; in such sort that when there are 
no more states of consciousness there is no more personal 
identity. 

And though I have stated repeatedly that this unity and 
this sum presuppose personal identity, I am aware that 
logical presupposition is not enough unless it can be shown 
that this unity is more than a sum, and that it is of such a 
sort that it is not only unthinkable, but unworkable with- 
out personal identity. 

It should not be forgotten that there was another alter- 
native, the mechanical by-product theory, the theory on 
which consciousness is, as it were, given off (like a gas) 
by the neural processes which are its physical antecedents 
and correlates, is resolvable into them, and ceases when 
they cease. 

If I have not paused to dispose of this theory before 
going further it is because I mean to return to it also later 
on. Meanwhile, if we succeed in establishing personal 
identity as a working hypothesis, the indispensable con- 
dition of consciousness as we know it, the importance (for 
Psychology) of the by-product theory will collapse in the 
process. 24 

But Personal Identity must do something for its living 
before we can be allowed to presuppose it in the light- 
hearted manner of the foregoing. 

And as I took Samuel Butler as a classic authority on 
the behaviour of the psyche in its human and pre-human 
past, I am going to take Mr. William McDougall as a 
classic authority — and on the whole, the clearest, simplest, 
and most convincing authority — on the behaviour of the 
psyche here and now. Not that the two behaviours can be 
separated, or that any modern psychologist would dream 
of separating them, but that, while one large part of Mr. 
McDougall's work necessarily overlaps Butler's, a still 



H A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

larger part deals with psychic powers and processes, all 
the synthetic and higher mental functions which Butler 
leaves untouched. And though a great deal of Mr. Mc- 
Dougall's work is necessarily founded on that of William 
James (every psychologist's work is bound to cover the 
same ground as his predecessors, and Mr. McDougall 
would be the last to claim a superior originality), 
it also covers ground that has appeared since the publica- 
tion of William James's Principles of Psychology, besides 
emphasizing several important points of difference, and 
disengaging the ultimate issue, if anything, with greater 
clearness and directness and simplicity. 

So simple and direct and clear is Mr. McDougall that he 
puts a pistol to our heads and presents us with two alter- 
natives and two alone: Psycho-physical Parallelism and 
Animism. 

It should be stated at once, for fear of misapprehension, 
that Mr. McDougall does not make his psychology a 
diving-board for a plunge into metaphysics. He tells us in 
his Preface that metaphysical Dualism is an " implica- 
tion " he is " anxious to avoid." But he will have none of 
Psychic Monism on any system. He affirms a distinct 
dualism between soul and body. And it should be borne 
in mind that, in the absence of any higher unifying princi- 
ple, his Animism lands us logically in the Pluralistic Uni- 
verse of William James. 

Still, he not only allows us to have a soul, but his aim is 
to make us see that, our • consciousness being what it is, 
Animism is the only theory which will be found to work. 

Before he consolidates his position he overhauls all the 
alternative philosophical theories, and finds that all but two 
are reducible to some form or other of Psycho-physical 
Parallelism. 

The two outstanding forms are both Monisms and both 
by-product theories : 

Physical Monism or Materialism, which regards con- 



SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY V5 

sciousness as the illusory by-product of the mechanical 
process of Matter (Epiphenomenalism), and 

Subjective Idealism or Solipsism, or Complete Egoism, 
which regards the whole universe, including matter 
and its mechanical processes, as an illusory by-product 
of the Self Alone. 

The three remaining forms are grouped under the head 
of Parallelism : namely 

1. Strict Psycho-physical Parallelism, which regards 

physical processes and psychic processes as running 
on two parallel lines that never meet, and have no 
branch lines that intersect them, each line represent- 
ing a distinct and different system of causation. 
According to this view there is no sense in which 
the two may be considered one. 

2. Phenomenal Parallelism, which regards physical proc- 

esses and psychic processes as two aspects, modes 
or appearances of one underlying Keality. They 
run on purely phenomenal parallel lines that never 
meet. The underlying Reality is Spinoza's Sub- 
stance or God, Kant's Thing-in-Itself, Herbert 
Spencer's Unknown and Unknowable, Schopen- 
hauer's and von Hartmann's Unconscious. All 
these philosophers agree in regarding their under- 
lying Eeality as neither mind nor matter, and in 
declaring that, though it might be a necessary pos- 
tulate, it could not be known. 

They all affirm the complete phenomenal Dual- 
ism of mind and matter. And Mr. McDougall is 
one with their opponents in demonstrating that their 
metaphysical Monism does nothing at all to bridge 
the gulf. But in deference to the underlying Un- 
known they all figure as holders of Identity-Hy- 
pothesis A. 

3. Psychical Monism, or Objective Idealism (Identity- 



76 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

Hypothesis B), which regards all physical processes 
and Nature, the sum of them, as products of 
Thought. It is the redoubtable theory of the world 
as " arising in consciousness.'' 

I am following Mr. McDougall rather than my own in- 
clination in including the Objective Idealist as a Parallel- 
liner. But Mr. McDougalPs classification will serve my 
purpose as well, for his sinister intention is to expose 
the latent dualism of that system, not in the interests of any 
metaphysical Monism he may have up his sleeve nor yet 
of a Pluralistic Universe, for he does not exalt his souls 
to ultimate principles, but for the sake of the cross corre- 
spondence he is to prove. 

I do not think that Mr. McDougall's dealings with 
"Psychical Monism" are always entirely satisfactory. 
Objective Idealists might object to being called Psychical 
Monists, and they would certainly be surprised to find 
their universe described as the " shadow of thought." 
Again, I think Mr. McDougall somewhat underrates the 
importance of strict Psycho-physical Parallelism, which is, 
after all, his real, or at any rate, his legitimate adversary. 
For in an encounter with any of the alternative systems he 
runs the risk of attacking ultimate metaphysical principles 
with merely psychological weapons ; that is to say, he may 
be carrying an argument that holds good in one sphere into 
another where it may not hold good at all. Moreover, his 
own theory of Animism — interaction and all — is by no 
means incompatible with " Identity-Hypothesis A," for 
which the soul itself may figure as a phenomenon or aspect 
of the underlying Reality. 

We will see how he disposes of his live alternative 
theories. 

Materialism, and Subjective Idealism, the mechanical 
by-product and Self -Alone theories fall an easy prey. 

Materialism has on its side a formidable array of argu- 
ments from facts. It can point to certain undeniable and 



SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 77 

invariable sequences of cause and effect. All sorts of dis- 
turbances and alterations of consciousness arise when 
poisons are introduced into the blood, from the excitement 
or stupor of intoxication to the profound coma of Bright's 
disease. Again, my brain processes slacken down, and I 
pass into the unconsciousness of dreamless sleep. They 
are interfered with by the rupture of a blood-vessel, and, 
either special departments of my consciousness are inter- 
fered with, or I lose consciousness altogether, or for so long 
as the interference lasts, that is to say, according to the 
extent and persistence of the lesion. My brain processes 
cease altogether, and — the inference seems too obvious to 
state. 

And yet the extreme conclusion does not follow unless 
materialism can show that physical processes give rise to 
consciousness in the first place. If they cannot, there will 
be no need to infer that their ceasing must cause its extinc- 
tion. And ultimately the argument for materialism rests 
on two laws and a corollary : the law of causation, according 
to which the cause passes over into its effect, and is dis- 
cernible therein ; and the law of the conservation of energy, 
according to which all the energy in the universe is a con- 
stant quantity which can neither be added to nor dimin- 
ished ; 25 the corollary being the biological law of the con- 
tinuity of evolution. Mr. McDougall points out {Body 
and Mind, Pages 150, 151) that the mechanical theory 
of consciousness saves the law of conservation of energy at 
the expense of the law of causation ; for there is no sense 
in which it can be said that molecular change, the presumed 
" cause " of sensation, passes over into its effect. It also 
breaks the biological law; since, however undefined, how- 
ever dim the borders between the conscious and the uncon- 
scious, there could hardly be a greater breach of continuity 
than the appearance of consciousness when it finally 
emerges at some point in the course of evolution. 

As for the Subjective Idealist or the Self-Aloner, Mr. 



78 A DEFENCE OE IDEALISM 

McDougall does not take the trouble to demolish him, re- 
garding the mere statement of his case as sufficient demon- 
stration of its absurdity. " With the Solipsist we cannot 
argue, but all of us are agreed that Solipsism is an impos- 
sible attitude for a sane man." 26 

So that the true alternative, the real opponent is Psycho- 
physical Parallelism in its three forms : Identity-Hypo- 
thesis A, Identity-Hypothesis B, and Strict Psycho-phys- 
ical Parallelism. 

The theory of the " two aspects " and the Underlying 
Identity (Identity-Hypothesis A) is open to the objection 
that as the " aspects " are " two events of radically differ- 
ent orders and are apprehended in two radically different 
ways/' that is to say, are incommensurable and devoid of 
any common term, they are not intelligibly referable to any 
real process underlying them. 

I confess I cannot understand Mr. McDougall's " still 
more serious objection." He says very truly that a thing 
can appear under two different aspects " only if and when 
both aspects are apprehended by the mind of some ob- 
server " ; and he argues that because 

" in the case of the physical and the psychical processes which 
are said to be the aspects of one real process, there is no such 
observer occupying the inner standpoint and apprehending the 
inner or psychical aspect of the real event, except in the alto- 
gether exceptional case of the introspecting psychologist," 
{Body and Mind, Pages 157, 158) ; 

therefore, neither the real event, nor the physical event nor 
the psychic event are apprehended at all. All we know of 
the real event is its two aspects; and all we know of the 
physical event is known, not in its own terms, but in terms 
of consciousness which is the other aspect ; and only a con- 
sciousness that was aware of its own brain processes 
could occupy the position of observer of the inner event. 
Surely all that the theory takes for granted is the un- 



SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 79 

deniable fact of a stream of consciousness, and the unde- 
niable fact of a stream of physical events ; on the one hand, 
the mysterious behaviour of mind, on the other the mys- 
terious behaviour of matter, including our brain processes 
(which are part of the outer and not of the inner event), 
and is not obliged to presuppose an inner spectator of the 
entire inner stream. You might as well argue that, as the 
physical events are only apprehended partially and not 
entirely, the underlying reality is not manifested in them. 
The real crux of the position being, not that there is no 
spectator of the inner event, but that there is one inner 
spectator of both outer and inner events ; while of the real 
event there is not any spectator at all; and while both 
aspects are to some extent given, and both to some extent 
known, the underlying reality (substance or process) in 
which both are one, remains unknown and unknowable. 
A situation baffling to the intelligence ; yet its supporters 
might answer that they can't help it if it is, and that intelli- 
gences were born to be baffled. 

Next comes the theory of Psychical Monism or Objective 
Idealism; the theory of Consciousness as the All, the Only 
Reality, and of the world as arising in consciousness. 

This theory is held in too many forms to be broken quite 
so easily as Mr. McDougall breaks it, on the " unity of con- 
sciousness," though his argument is destructive to the loose 
Monism of his own principal opponents. 

" My consciousness is a stream of consciousness which has a 
certain unique unity; it is a multiplicity of distinguishable 
parts or features which, although they are perpetually changing, 
yet hang together as a continuous whole within which the 
changes go on. This then is the nature of consciousness as we 
know it. Now it is perfectly obvious and universally admitted 
that my stream of consciousness is not self-supporting, is not 
self-sufficient, is not a closed, self-determining system ; it is ad- 
mitted that each phase of the stream does not flow wholly out of 
the preceding phase, and that its course cannot be explained 
without the assumption of influences coming upon it from with- 



80 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

out. What then are those influences? The Psychical Monist 
must reply — They are other consciousnesses. How then about 
the process by which the other consciousnesses, the other streams 
of consciousness, influence my stream of consciousness ? Is this 
also consciousness? (For, we are told, all process is conscious 
process.) If so, it also is a stream of consciousness, and it must 
influence my stream through the agency of yet another stream, 
and so on ad infinitum. Thus my consciousness itself, by rea- 
son of the fact that it hangs together as a stream of process 
relatively independent of other streams of process, implies the 
essence of what is meant by substantiality, namely, the con- 
tinuing to have or to be a numerically distinct existence, in spite 
of partial change." {Body and Mind, Pages 162, 163.) 

The fact of the unity of consciousness can certainly not 
be accounted for or explained on the simple theory of con- 
sciousness as a stream or streams, or as any sequence or 
even conglomeration of merely " associated " states. The 
inner weakness of this form of Psychical Monism is con- 
fessed by one of its ablest representatives, Professor C. A. 
Strong, who turns up more than once in Mr. McDougall's 
pages with his distressful query, " What holds consciousness 
together % " As it is manifestly impossible to get any 
unity out of a stream, or rather out of many streams, he is 
driven to the hypothesis of " psychical dispositions " as a 
substitute for a soul. But psychical dispositions must 
either also be part of the stream or streams ; in which case 
it is not easy to see how unity is to be got out of them ; or 
they must be " raised to the rank of extra mental realities, 
and a system of such realities neither c simple ' nor i un- 
divided/ yet quite sufficiently active, will form our substi- 
tute for the soul," so good a substitute that Mr. McDougall 
sees no difference between this theory and Animism. 

I am still following Mr. McDougall, and for the moment 
I must ignore, as he does, the older theories of Objective 
Idealism. Its adherents, so far from regarding conscious- 
ness as a flux, saw it held together in a firm net of " thought- 
relations " to which it owes its " objectivity." Eor them 



SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 81 

the unity of consciousness was as the very rock of their be- 
lief. 

Mr. McDougall, like his opponents, Professor Strong, 
Professor Paulsen, Professor Munsterberg, and all the wit- 
nesses to Psychical Monism whom he summons up, look 
upon consciousness both as a stream and as something es- 
sentially disjointed ; and they all cry aloud for something to 
" hold it together." He has no difficulty in breaking all 
their backs one after the other over the " unity of conscious- 
ness," and finally settling them with the problem of un- 
consciousness. It is obvious that a stream of conscious- 
ness, even with central whirlpools in it of psychical disposi- 
tions, cannot have periods or even moments of unconscious- 
ness without ceasing to exist. There are other arguments, 
drawn from other qualities of consciousness ; but these two 
are sufficient for the destruction of the Psychical Monists. 
Fechner, the author of strict Psycho-physical Parallelism, 
is twice broken, once as a Parallelist, and once as a Psy- 
chical-Monist. 

It is hard to see why Fechner should be involved in the 
special ruin of the Psychical Monists ; though he certainly 
held a somewhat unstable position mid-way. Fechner's 
case is peculiar. He starts with a vigorous Parallelism, 
and then, by what seems the masterly inconsistency of his 
enthusiasm, lands himself in Psychical Monism with his 
theory of Pan-Psychism. All the same, he never abated 
one jot of his Parallelism in his serious Psycho-Physih. 
But his Pan-Psychism lands him peacefully in Animism, 
side by side with Mr. McDougall, so far as he gives the 
ghost of personal identity to his souls. 27 

But after all, what does his inconsistency amount to? 
He held that wherever we find matter we find mind in 
some degree, however low. Not the smallest grain of in- 
organic dust that has not its psyche. And he held that 
wherever we find mind we find matter. This position he 
defended to the last against all his opponents. So far 



82 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

Fechner must be judged a Parallel-liner. Inside his sys- 
tem lie is almost fanatically consistent. But he had an 
imaginative genius that would have been dangerous to any 
system, and it carried him far beyond the limits of his 
own. 

But when we come to the strict Psycho-physical Paral- 
lel-liners, back-breaking isn't quite so simple a matter. 
For they are the people who are punctiliously just in 
weighing the claims of both sides ; they refuse on any con- 
sideration to let the balance tip to one or the other. And 
as Mr. McDougall is, if anything, still more punctilious 
and still more just, it is not so easy for him to make out 
a case for Animism against them. They are less vulner- 
able because less adventurous. 

Fechner's follower, Wundt, who outdoes his master in 
simple Parallelism, is a formidable adversary, whose views 
require rather more detailed consideration. He lays down 
his parallel lines with laborious science and strenuousness, 
and he runs his system along them with sobriety and dis- 
cretion. If it leaves the rails it is not because Wundt al- 
lows himself to be distracted by ecstatic visions of the cos- 
mic soul. 

Never, on Wundt's theory, can the two lines, the physical 
process and the psychic process, hope to meet. Between 
them there is equivalence and point to point correspond- 
ence, for every neural change a psychic change ; for every 
psychic change a neural change; with a sequence so in- 
variable that where we can detect the one we may infer the 
other; but no connection, no cross-correspondence from 
line to line, no interdependence, no interaction. 

In psycho-physical organisms 

"body and soul are, for our immediate knowledge, one being, 
not different. . . . When from all natural phenomena, and there- 
fore from all phenomena of physical life, we carefully abstract 
the psychic processes, it is obvious that from these objective 
processes, thus stripped of their subjective side, subjective prop- 



SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 83 

erties could never be deduced, just as, vice versa, the deduction 
of physical life-processes from psychic experiences as such is 
impossible. Body and soul are a unity, but they are not identi- 
cal : they are not the same, but they are properties that are found 
together in all living beings." (Physiologische-Psychologie, 
Vol. Ill, Chap. XXII, Page 767 et seq.) 

They are not the same. How are we to conceive the 
relation between them — their unity ? We are to conceive 
it as a parallelism. And the Law of Parallelism runs 
thus : 

" Wherever and whenever we find ordered relations between 
psychical and physical phenomena, these are neither identical 
nor interchangeable (in einander trans formirbar) . For they are 
not comparable one to the other; but they are related to each 
other in such a way that certain physical processes correspond 
regularly with certain psychical processes ; or, to use a figurative 
expression, they go ' parallel to one another.' This definition, 
which we prefer to keep now that it has been once for all intro- 
duced into psycho-physiology is, however, only half correct. 
It expresses very aptly the fact that the groups of phenomena 
here brought into correlation are not identical, but not that there 
is no ground of comparison between them," (Ibid.) 

There is no bridge from the mechanical causality that 
rules on the physical line to the teleological causality that 
rules on the psychic line. 

" Take the case of an act of will, try to break up the links 
proper to the combined psycho-physical series completely into 
their physical elements; in such a process starting point and 
ending point will be connected up through all the intermediary 
links in the chain, and through all the conditions that accom- 
pany them; but this connection can never be thought of other- 
wise than as a purely causal one. Whereas we cannot make the 
proper teleological connection between ending point and start- 
ing point of the (psychic) series until after the series is actually 
completed, according to the universal character of teleological 
connections." (Ibid., Pages 754, 755.) 

That is to say, in tracing the steps of the physical proc- 



84 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

ess we go back and find the cause at the beginning and the 
effect at the end of the series ; while in the psychic series 
we go forwards and find the cause — the design or purpose 
of our act of will — at its end and not at its beginning. 
An act of will has always reference to the future, is 
grounded in the future, while the physical event is 
grounded in the past. 

Again, in physical causality, cause and effect are equiva- 
lent ; the cause passes over into the effect, so that there is 
nothing in the effect that was not already contained in the 
cause. In psychic causality the effect is by no means al- 
ready contained in the cause and may be out of all pro- 
portion to it. And, it may be added, like causes do 
not necessarily produce like effects. Only of subjective 
motive, as distinct from objective end or purpose, can it 
be said that it is already contained, not in the actual result 
of any given action, but in its general direction or tend- 
ency. The actual result may be something that goes far 
beyond anything contemplated in the purpose, something 
for which the motive is utterly inadequate. For instance, 
I want to inflict a slight physical injury on my neighbour 
for his good. Reformation is my motive, chastisement my 
end or purpose, death by unrealized and undreamed-of 
violence, the actual result. Neither violence nor death 
were a part of my purpose ; they are in no way contained 
in, nor are they commensurate with my motive ; but chas- 
tisement may be said to be included in my general policy 
of reformation. 

I suppose it is something of this sort that Wundt means 
by motives being " already contained " in the " direction " 
of these results, as causes are in their effects. 

" In this sense," he says, " every psychic connection of the 
immediate contents of consciousness forms both a causal and a 
teleological series. And that, not merely in the general regres- 
sive sense which holds good of all natural causality, but also 
in that specially progressive sense by which the End itself be- 



SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 85 

comes cause, and as such precedes its effect. To be sure, here 
too, the end which, as motive, precedes its effect, is not identical 
with it; and thus far in this case also there remains a margin 
of causality which stretches beyond causality itself." (Physi- 
ologische-Psychologie, Vol. Ill, Chap. XXII.) 

Teleological judgment is based on this discrepancy be- 
tween the end proposed and the end accomplished. It is a 
nice question of 

" on the one hand comparing such and such results with the 
motives which inevitably tend towards them (welche die Rich- 
tung auf jene enthalten), and on the other hand, of valuing 
motives according to the probable results." (Ibid.) 

It will be seen at once that Wundt does not by any 
means belittle the Psychic role. He has made over to it 
the whole realm of teleology — a very handsome concession 
— and of moral values. We shall see how much more he 
has conceded when we come to his law of the " creative re- 
sultants." 

For the moment the chief points to notice about his 
parallel lines are, first, that there is no common term and 
no common value between them, no bridge of any sort be- 
tween the dual systems of mechanical and teleological 
causality ; next, that every causal change is the last link in 
a series of changes having their starting-point in the vast 
physical universe outside the body; whereas the psychic 
changes have, apparently, no world of equivalent vastness 
to which they may be referred. On the other hand, the 
psychic processes show what William James would 
have called a " thickness " of their own. They are not 
only sequences but syntheses. They not only follow on, but 
stick together, and stick together in such a way that the 
whole has a different quality from its parts; that is to 
say, it is something more and other than the sum of the 
several states which compose it, and is therefore a new 
thing. 



86 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

For this newness and unexpectedness and otherness that 
we meet with in every psychic synthesis, Wnndt found an 
admirable expression in his principle of the " creative re- 
sultants." He calls them " resultants " to show that 

" it is from single and empirically provable elements, or groups 
of elements, that the synthesis is made, and in a strict accord- 
ance with law analogous to that synthesis by which the com- 
ponents of a mechanical movement give rise to their resultants." 

But he qualifies the process with the adjective " cre- 
ative " to show that 

"the effect is not, as in the case of a resultant movement, of 
the same kind and value as its components, but that it is a 
specifically new event, made ready but not ready made, by its 
elements (vorbereitetes aber nicht vorgebildetes) and that its 
characteristic value marks a newer and a higher stage than 
theirs." 

For instance, 

" A sound is more than the sum of the tones that compose it. 
While these are melted into a unity, the ground-tone gains a 
colour of its own through the overtones which, because of their 
lesser intensity, have become powerless as independent elements ; 
these make it a very much richer sound than it could be as a 
simple tone. 

" Likewise every spatial perception is a product, or result, in 
which, again, certain elements have lost their independence, and 
impart to the result a completely new property — the spatial 
order of sensations." 

Again : 

"In processes of willing the multiplicity of motives finally 
gives rise to more and more complex forms of willing, which 
again, as original psychic products, are differentiated from the 
single elements of motive which compose them." 

But, lest we should build too much on this creative prin- 
ciple, we are warned unmistakably that it refers 

"only to syntheses and relations of such psychic contents as 



SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 87 

hold together immediately, and never to such as are completely 
separated; even when these belong to a single individual con- 
sciousness. In short, it is a principle that applies only to par- 
ticular psychic events; not a law that rules in spiritual evolu- 
tion generally." Physiologische-Psychologie, Vol. Ill, Chap. 
XXII.) 

And we can no more draw conclusions from it as to the 
future of existing spiritual values (or of spiritual beings) 
than we can argue as to the future of the physical world 
from the law of conservation of energy. 

Meanwhile, the back of materialism is broken. In 
psychic processes we have got another principle of causality 
altogether. We have something so new, so different, that 
it cannot possibly be accounted for by any mechanical or 
material process. 

So far so good. But can strict Parallelism be kept up ? 
Surely Parallelism implies correspondence of the events on 
one line with events on the other. And on a system of 
strict correspondence we should expect to find that all 
events on one line were represented somewhere on the other, 
or at least that all ascertainable sequences could be shown 
to correspond point for point ; even when physical group- 
ings do not correspond with psychic groupings, and vice 
versa. But it is difficult to see, on the one hand, how 
several million vibrations, whose psychic correlate is a 
sensation of colour, are represented in the psychic event, 
or, on the other hand, how any conceivable grouping of 
nerve and brain cells could represent or correspond with 
the perception of objects in the field of vision. 

Even if different qualities of sensations of the same 
class are represented by differences in the rate of vibra- 
tions, it is still difficult to see how differences between 
classes — the difference, for instance, between sight and 
hearing — are represented by any conceivable differences 
in the construction, or disposition, or chemical quality of 
molecules in the visual and auditory nerves. 



88 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

So that, from the first moment of rudimentary conscious- 
ness, Parallelism breaks down. And when the psychic plot 
broadens and deepens, and its " thickness " becomes appar- 
ent, the system definitely leaves the rails. If it cannot 
stand the strain of such a simple psychic process as ele- 
mentary sensation, how is it going to stand the strain of 
any psychic processes less simple than those which are 
supposed to be accounted for on the " association " 
theory ? 28 True, if memory and the association of ideas 
are no more than the psychic response to repeated stimulus 
of the same associated nerve and brain cells, the faithful 
correlate of a purely physical association, fixed by re- 
peated treading of the same nervous track, then physical 
habit and psychic habit will run perfectly parallel. The 
parallelisms task is even simpler than the associationist's, 
since he has not got to account for the psychic process 
causally at all. 

We shall see how it is this too great simplicity of his 
that wrecks him. 

Here the crucial question raised by Mr. McDougall turns 
on meaning. 

" The parallelist has to believe that purely mechanical deter- 
mination runs parallel with logical process and issues in the 
same results. He has to believe or at any rate assert, that every 
form of human activity and every product of human activity is 
capable of being mechanically explained. Consider then, a page 
of print, the letters and words of a logical argument are im- 
pressed upon the page by a purely mechanical process. But 
what has determined their order ? Their order is such that when 
an adequately educated person reads the lines, he takes the 
meaning of the words or sentences, follows the reasoning and 
is led to, and forced to accept, the logical conclusion." 

As for the author, for him the meaning and the logical 
drift of his words and sentences was present in his con- 
sciousness before and during and after the process of writ- 
ing; his foreseen and foregoing purpose was to demon- 
strate his meaning ; 



SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 89 

" his choice of words and order was determined by this purpose, 
by the desire to achieve an end, a result, which existed only in 
his consciousness. Now the parallelist necessarily maintains 
that all this process ... is in principle capable of being fully 
explained as the outcome of the mechanical interplay of the 
author's brain-processes: that a complete description of the 
mechanics of these processes would be a complete explanation of 
the ordering of the letters, words and sentences." {Body and 
Mind, Pages 174, 175.) 

I do not think that it is fair to the parallelist to fasten 
on him a belief that the mechanical process, if known, 
would account for the teleological process ; for that is pre- 
cisely what the strict Parallelist denies. And Wundt 
would have been the first to insist on the purely teleological 
character of the process described. 

Enough, if the Animist can show that there is a tele- 
ological process on the physical line, that interaction gives 
a better account of what goes on on both lines, and that 
causation and teleology, so far from being mutually ex- 
clusive, involve each other. 

Mr. McDougall then asks : " Is there or is there not 
any complete brain correlate of that part of our conscious- 
ness which we call meaning ? " 

The same question is crucial for memory. 

Memory as nerve-habit association is the great psychic 
stronghold of the parallelist; and if it can be shown that 
meaning is a determinant of association and of memory, the 
stronghold will be very badly shaken. 

In considering how associations are actually formed, 
Mr. McDougall gives us a very clear and simple statement 
of the case. 

" Our consciousness comprises again and again complex con- 
junctions of sensations which show no appreciable tendency to 
become associated together. It is only when the attention is 
turned upon the objects that excite sensations, and when the 
sensations enter into the process of perception (serving as cues 
that bring some meaning to consciousness) that associations are 



90 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

formed. And even then, the forming of an effective neural as- 
sociation is by no means an immediate and invariable re* 
suit. . . ." 

He illustrates this point by his own experience in teach- 
ing his son, a clever and observant child of six. The boy 
had no difficulty in learning the alphabet and recognizing 
the forms of the letters. But, when it came to naming 
each letter separately, many hundreds of repetitions were 
required to fix the mechanical association between the 
form of the letter and its name. In learning to name num- 
bers from one to ten 

" an even larger number of repetitions of the naming were re- 
quired to establish really effective associations. 

" This experience brought home to me very vividly the great 
difference between memory and mechanical association. For 
the boy, who required so many hundred repetitions for the es- 
tablishment of these simple mechanical associations, would 
often surprise me by referring to scenes and events observed by 
him months or even years previously, sometimes describing them 
in a way that seemed to imply vivid and faithful representation. 
Yet the memory pictures of such scenes involved far more com- 
plex conjunctions of partial impressions than did the remem- 
bering the name of a printed letter or number. 

" The essential difference between the rememberings of these 
two kinds was that in the one case meaning was at a minimum, 
and remembering depended almost wholly upon mechanical or 
neural association of the nature of a habit; whereas the com- 
plex scenes and events remembered (in some instances after a 
single perception only) were full of meaning." 

How crucial this factor of meaning is will be realized 
when we consider the established psychological fact that 

" an impression which is already associated with others acquires 
new associations with more difficulty than one which is free from 
previously formed associations, and that the difficulty is greater 
the greater the number of the previously formed associations." 

Hence, on the theory of mechanical association, 
" the richer the meaning the greater should be the difficulty of 



SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 91 

combining any complex of sense impressions and of reproducing 
them as one memory picture; it is therefore impossible to ac- 
count in this way for the fact that impressions which convey 
much meaning are combined and remembered with so much less 
difficulty than those of little meaning." {Body and Mind, 
Pages 340, 341.) 

Mr. McDougall might have added that mechanical as- 
sociations have the longer ancestral history ; they have been 
practised longer; so that we should expect their physical 
machinery to work with such an ease and readiness as to 
render them pre-potent in determining remembrance. 
What actually happens is clean contrary to this — the 
higher, and biologically more recent, power of appreciation 
of meaning rules the event. 

It must not be supposed that Mr. McDougall by any 
means underrates the other side of the question. 

" Neural associations or habits may so link groups of sensory 
elements of the brain as to lead to successive revival of the 
corresponding sensory complexes ... in so far as each sensory 
complex has evoked meaning in the past, it tends to revive it 
upon its reproduction and reinstate the idea in consciousness. 
This is the process of the evocation of an idea from the neural 
side. It plays only a subordinate part in the higher processes 
of remembering." 

Eor the idea is more than its sensory content; it is a 
" compound of sensory content and meaning." And mean- 
ing, as we have seen, has escaped the net of neural associa- 
tion. Yet the pre-potency of meaning argues its persist- 
ency. 

But — ■ how or where do meanings persist % 

" Clearly," Mr. McDougall says, " they do not persist as facts 
of consciousness. But the development of the mind, from in- 
fancy onwards, consists largely in the development of capacities 
for ideas and thoughts of richer, fuller, more abstract and more 
general meanings. If then meanings have no immediate physi- 
cal correlates or counterparts in the brain, and if the meanings 
themselves do not persist, we must suppose that the persistent 



92 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

conditions of meanings are psychic dispositions." {Body and 
Mind, Page 343.) 

If anybody has a lingering doubt as to the possibility of 
what is called the " psychic increment " — of psychical dis- 
positions and of psycho-physical interactions — let him ask 
himself what would happen if the automaton theory of 
association really held good. The question is crucial; 
for, while all the higher mental processes are based on as- 
sociation, it is still possible to acknowledge the " creative " 
value (in Wundt's sense) of a logical synthesis, and to 
deny strenuously that the psyche has a hand in the associa- 
tions themselves. 

Let us suppose, then, that it has no hand ; that it must 
always take what associations are given to it, without any 
means of selection and rejection other than the automatic 
stamping out of weaker and less frequent associations by 
stronger and more frequent ones; and that these associa- 
tions are formed strictly by neural habits. We are told 
that, when two or more impressions are received together, 
either often enough or with sufficient intensity, a neural 
track from one to the other is set up within the brain cell 
where both have met, a track which henceforth becomes a 
line of least resistance ; so that, either on the actual repeti- 
tion of the one impression, or its revival in memory, the 
other — through the revived stimulation of the brain cell 
— spontaneously and inevitably leaps forth. Suppose that 
this is all there is in it ; suppose that we remember, never 
because we choose, but always because we must ; and that 
our memories are at the mercy of all sorts of random as- 
sociations, being nothing but the revived stimulation of the 
brain cells where neural paths having once met, meet for 
ever; suppose that there are no psychic dispositions, no 
psychic interferences, no psychic preferences, and no selec- 
tions and rejections of associations, then our consciousness 
would be like nothing on earth but an immense fantastic 



SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 93 

telephone exchange; an exchange where messages, indeed 
received and registered and answered themselves, but all 
at once, and in overwhelming multitudes; an exchange 
deafened and disorganized; bells ringing incessantly all 
through its working hours ; messages rushing in from all 
parts of the city and suburbs at once, crossed and recrossed 
by trunk calls from all parts of the outlying country; 
casually crossing and recrossing, interrupting and utterly 
obliterating each other. 

On these lines, neither logical departments nor central 
control could possibly exist. Yet without some one central 
sorting and supervising system, a system which refused 
more calls than it received, mere automatic association 
would have no more method about it than that mad tele- 
phone exchange. 

What is the more likely, not to say more conceivable, 
theory: that the brain, which is itself the exchange, the 
distracted hall where the infinite number of wires meet and 
mingle, without aid selects and rejects, orders, gives mean- 
ing, supervises, and controls % Or that the psyche uses 
the brain, and the memories which have become the habits 
of its body and its brain, as its machine, and its vehicle ; 
and that the secret of its remembering and forgetting is its 
own? 

But if " psychical disposition " determines the higher 
forms of memory, what, then, determines " psychical dis- 
position " ? 

As Mr. McDougall does not raise this question, we may 
take it that he considers " the soul itself " to be sufficient 
answer. 

But, as you cannot cut the individual soul clean off from 
its own history, from its long past existences, it is just 
possible that preacquired experience may have determined 
its individual " disposition," in the absence of any perma- 
nent factor persisting in and partly determining those ex- 
periences themselves. 



94 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

If there be such a permanent factor persisting through 
past experiences, and in part determining them, it is the 
Will; and the Will itself will be in part determined by 
past experience; so much enterprise in seeking new expe- 
rience, so much adaption to each experience found. 
Go back to the earliest experiences of all ; say that the first 
bit of protoplasm is formed in fulfilment of some need, 
that the amoeba " improvises a stomach because it wants 
to," and that our protoplasmic forefather did the same 
thing for the same sufficient reason; he may be supposed 
to have taken the next step, and the next step after that, 
also for the same reason, his want or will determining his 
development and slowly but surely shaping his memory, 
his associations, and his meanings (when he has any), till 
in the long run (his intelligence immensely helping) it has 
shaped the psychical disposition he is born with. If at 
the top of the scale to-day, Mr. McDougall's son's memory 
is determined by meaning, is not that because of his psychic 
predilection or choice of meanings ? 

Is it rash to suppose that some such cumulative effect 
of will comes under the head of that " psychic increment " 
of energy, which, as Mr. McDougall suggests, may in all 
probability influence the behaviour of organisms % (He is 
trying to show that the law of conservation of energy is not 
in itself fatal to the hypothesis of the psychic increment. ) 

". . . all living organisms show certain peculiarities of be- 
haviour that are not established by any inorganic aggregations 
of matter. The peculiarities of behaviour of living organisms, 
especially the power of resisting the tendency to degradation of 
energy which seems to prevail throughout the inorganic realm, 
are correlated with, that is to say, they constantly go together 
with, the presence of psycho-physical processes in them, and this 
fact of correlation implies causal relation between the two 
things. . . . The few experiments which go to show that the 
energy given out by an organism is equal in amount to the 
energy taken in, are far too few and too rough to rule out the 
possibility that psychical effort may involve increment of energy 



SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 95 

to the organism; for increments far too small to be detected 
might effect very important changes in the course of the organic 
processes." 

If this hypothesis remains unjustified we have the alter- 
native possibility " that mind may exert guidance upon the 
brain-processes without altering the quantity of energy." 
In either case, the physical law of conservation is not one 
that can be legitimately applied to energies presumably of 
a different order. 

It seems to me that both alternatives, that of the psychic 
influx (or increment) of energy, and that of the guiding 
influence of mind, are a little vague ; besides being vulner- 
able to any experiment that may yet establish the law of 
conservation of energy in living organisms. Whereas we 
do find that every act of will is accompanied by the release 
of energy; so much so that desire seeking fulfilment may 
be said to be psychic energy itself. Anyhow, whether as 
release or as influx, it is the one psychic factor that appears 
the fittest to play the decisive evolutionary role. It is the 
one that lies nearest to life itself, that has the deepest 
ground in our past and the highest reach into our future. 

We have seen how the " psychic increment " may work 
at the human level in the case of Mr. McDougall's son. 
Let us see now what part it plays at a level slightly lower 
than the human — in the case of Professor Thorndike's 
Cat. 

Mr. McDougall is considering the process of acquiring 
" new modes of bodily response to impressions " by adapta- 
tion and movement. {Body and Mind, Page 318.) 
Professor Thorndike, testing animal intelligence by various 
experiments, hit upon the simple one of shutting up a 
hungry cat in a cage within sight of a saucer of milk 
placed outside. The door of his cage was closed with a 
latch which it was just possible for the cat to open by a 
happy accident in his struggles to escape. 



96 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

" The cat, stimulated by the sight of food placed near the 
cage, makes a great variety of movements, clawing, scratching 
and squeezing in all parts of the cage; it runs through its vo- 
cabulary of movement without the least indication that it ap- 
preciates the presence of a door, or of a latch by moving which 
the door may be opened. Sooner or later, in the course of these 
random movements, the latch is moved by happy accident and 
the cat escapes to enjoy the food. Now it is found that in 
nearly all cases, if the cat is put back in the same cage on many 
successive occasions, it gradually learns to escape more and 
more quickly; until eventually it goes straight to the latch and 
makes the necessary movement." (Ibid., Page 319.) 

Now on any theory which absolutely excludes the psychic 
factors of desire and choice, and denies that movement can 
be determined by anything but neural habit associations, 
the cat's readiness to acquire the habit of the right move- 
ment is inexplicable. Why just that particular movement 
of all the movements he has made and repeated, each repe- 
tition setting up a neural habit? Why should the habit 
of the successful movement override the habits of the un- 
successful movements, which have had the advantage of 
the start, if desire and its fulfilment, if success or failure 
are not to count? 

It is not necessary to keep a cat hungry and shut him up 
in a cage within sight of food in order to test the power 
of psychic associations over neural ones. Everybody who 
has lived with animals, and loved them and gained their 
love, must have observed what I may call the pre-potency of 
their acquired affections over long established habit associa- 
tions. (I am not sure whether one may speak of the pre- 
potency of acquired characteristics! But an illustration 
will make my meaning clear.) My own cat, like other 
cats, is obsessed by his motor habits. Perhaps his most 
persistent motor habit is his garden game of running away 
and hiding in the bushes when I try to catch him. In- 
doors, he is not happy unless he is sitting in my lap. 
There he may be easily caught, and will even offer him- 



SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 97 

self to be carried like an infant in arms. Out of doors 
he will not come to any call; lie will not be caught or 
touched by any hand. My approach is the signal for his 
flight. All through this summer, and last spring and sum- 
mer and autumn, all through the spring and summer and 
autumn before that, he kept up his garden game, with the 
same fixed gestures, the same lovely ritual of play ; a ritual 
so invariable as surely to have become automatic. This 
autumn I went away for seven weeks. When I came back 
he was not in the house. I could hardly suppose that if 
he was in the garden he would come to me, since he had 
formed no habit of coming when he was called. Still, I 
called him ; and in an instant he appeared on the wall of 
the next garden but one. He stood there and stared at me 
till he had put the voice and the figure together. Then he 
came running fast, along the connecting wall into his own 
garden, and straight into my arms. The rush of affection 
and of reminiscence had carried it over all the motor habits 
of the garden game, and over all his ancestral memories 
of pursuit and flight. 

Now if Parallelism cannot well account for the be- 
haviour of Professor Thorndike's cat, still less can it ac- 
count for the behaviour of my cat. 

There are yet other psychic factors besides desire and 
its opposite, aversion, which are not represented on the 
physical side. There are pleasure and displeasure. And 
there is a further problem: Do these psychic factors, or 
does some neural process determine the movements of or- 
ganisms ? Grant that pleasant experiences are beneficial 
and unpleasant experiences hurtful. 

"If then" (I am still quoting Mr. McDougall) "pleasure 
and displeasure are themselves the determinants of movements 
of appetition and avoidance, we can understand how this gen- 
eral agreement between the beneficial and the pleasurable and 
between the hurtful and the disagreeable has been brought 
about by natural selection. . . ." 



98 



A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 



And if 

"we adopt the Parallelisms assumption that two neural proc- 
esses, the physical correlates of pleasure and displeasure (which 
we may call x and y) are determinants of appetition and 
aversion, then the correlation throughout the animal world 
of x with the beneficial and of y with the hurtful, bodily affec- 
tions follows . . . from the Darwinian principle. But that x 
should express itself in consciousness as pleasure and y as dis- 
pleasure would remain an insoluble problem." 

Again : 

" And if it be asked — Are we then to believe that the feelings 
themselves act directly upon cerebral processes ? the answer must 
be, I think, No; they act only indirectly, namely, by exciting 
conation or psychical effort, for conation is, essentially, the 
putting forth of psychical power to modify the course of physi- 
cal events." 

Now, the parallelist and the materialist with him might 
say: Why drag in psychical effort to account for move- 
ments of appetition and aversion which you have allowed 
to be determined by x and y ? On the theory, psychical 
effort can do no more than show itself as a movement of 
appetition and aversion which has been already accounted 
for. The Animist can only " down " him by showing that 
psychic effort does do more. It does so much by way of 
modifying physical events that its teleological action de- 
flects the teleological line from the parallel and sends it 
cutting across the causal line continually. 

The parallelisms diagram of the transaction should stand 
thus: 



Physical and Causal Line. 

Movement h 

accomplished. A 



Neural process. 



a 



Psychic and Teleological Line. 

Movement desired V 

as end. 



Sense-impression. 



a' 



SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 99 



These are positively all the factors that the strict paral- 
lelist is justified in taking into account, if his lines are to 
remain strictly parallel, and if point for point correspond- 
ence is to be perfect. The diagram is absurd; but it is 
beautifully simple, as on any theory of rigid Parallelism it 
is bound to be. You will notice that interaction is in- 
exorably barred. There is no bridge to or from the causal 
physical process on the one side to the psychic teleological 
process on the other. 

You will also notice that no teleological action has taken 
place. It need not take place, because neural process a 
has led directly to the accomplishment of movement b. 
And it cannot take place because, clearly, movement b is 
accomplished on the physical line, and there is no means of 
transferring it to the psychic line. 

So the parallelist must either give up his teleology, or, 
agreeing that teleological action has taken place, he must 
admit that it has contributed to an effect (the movement) 
accomplished on the physical line ; in which case he gives 
up his Parallelism, and goes over to the theory of inter- 
action. 

I do not want to complicate this problem unnecessarily, 
but if we introduce the factor of time — and we cannot 
ignore it — some very odd consequences will follow. 

For we have not forgotten that, on the two lines of phys- 
ical and teleological causation, what is last in the physical 
series as effect appears first in the psychic series as cause. 



Physical Process. Instants of Time. Psychic Process. 



(Action) d -4^ 
c 
I 
a 



d» 
c" 

a! 



■," 



Awareness of action 

Will to act 

Desire for action 
'- (Action, 

as final cause, 
end or purpose.) 



d' 
c' 
V 
a! * 



100 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

I am not trying to circumvent Parallelism by arguing 
that an action accomplished is identical with an action de- 
signed; and that, consequently, the same thing, besides 
existing both as the cause and the effect of itself, must 
exist (as cause) at the same instant of time when (as 
effect) it has not yet come into existence. For there is no 
reason why the same thing should not behave as cause and 
effect respectively at different instants of time; and it is 
quite impossible to establish point for point correspond- 
ence of the series of instants in time with the series of 
physical and psychic events, so as to force the conclusion 
that the time of those different behaviours is the same. I 
suggest none of these absurdities. On the contrary, in 
spite of that diagram, I would insist that action physically 
accomplished, and action as purpose or end, are two sepa- 
rate events — divided, it may be, by a long period of time 
and by many intervening processes — of which one event, 
invisible, incalculable, psychic, most truly determines the 
other which is visible, calculable and physical ; inasmuch as 
the inner event is the one factor without which the outer 
event would not have happened. And I would suggest that, 
this being so, it is not the antecedent neural process but the 
antecedent psychic process that is the prime causal factor. 

But — to return to the case of Professor Thorndike's cat 
— there were other psychic factors, not represented on that 
diagram, which cannot be ignored. 

What has happened in the case of Professor Thorndike's 
cat ? 

The cat has received his pleasant sense-impression of the 
milk outside his cage. He has hit on the lucky means of 
escape, and established a pleasant memory of the beneficial 
result. After a few experiments, which he makes himself, 
a connection (but what connection ?) is established between 
a', the sense-impression of the milk, and b, the movement 
which unlatches the door ; so that, in future, sense-impres- 
sion a! is instantly followed by movement b. 



SOME QUESTIONS OE PSYCHOLOGY 101 

Now, besides these two terms, there stands on the psychic 
line, a third term, c% the cat's pleasure or satisfaction. 
(His pleasure and his pleasant memory are really two 
terms ; or, if we count repetitions, they are as many as you 
like ; but for the purpose of the problem they may be taken 
as one). This third term is of supreme importance in de- 
termining b. It, not b (the movement itself), is the real 
final cause, the motive, purpose or end of &. Eor the 
pleasure or satisfaction of drinking milk is that for which 
the cat makes his experiments and his successful move- 
ment. 

But, though the psychic event c 7 will no doubt be repre- 
sented on the physical line by some point of neural change, 
c, on the parallelist hypothesis <f (again) must be a super- 
fluous and impertinent interloper, since the sense-impres- 
sion and the memory of &', the sight of the saucer of milk, 
or rather, its representative neural change, a, is sufficient 
to bring about the movement b by nervous discharges along 
a path of least resistance, going direct, that is to say, with- 
out psychic intervention, from a to b. (Direct, because 
the question is not of the neural reflexes naturally involved, 
but of psycho-physical interaction.) So direct is it (in 
this sense) that, given strict correspondence, the process on 
the psychic line — each term accompanied, if you like, by 
its meaningless note of neural change — ought to stand 
a' b', without any intermediary c\ The cat's pleas- 
ure (which, by the way, has grown by repetition from one 
more or less simple sensation to a perfect pile of memories 
and anticipations of pleasure), the Cat's Pleasure, so im- 
mensely important and personal to him, counts for nothing 
in the parallelisms programme; though to the cat and to 
his master it must rank as the chief actor in the psychic 
drama. 

If it comes to that, is it, can it be, really the chief 
actor ? Or even the chief motive power % Behind the 
cat's movement is his memory, and before it his anticipa- 



102 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

tion of pleasure; so that, even if we count the sensation 
and the memory and the anticipation as one determinant, 
the psychic plot thickens before our eyes. And if we are 
really to do justice to the whole action, we must assume a 
fourth factor, d\ the Cat's Desire. 

Eliminate his desire, and his whole behaviour becomes 
meaningless. His pleasure is meaningless; his move- 
ment is meaningless; he might just as well keep quiet in 
his cage. True, he would not desire the milk if he had no 
pleasure in it. It is equally true, however, that he would 
have no pleasure in it if he did not desire it. And the pe- 
culiarity of this factor of desire is this: that it does not 
enter the series as a single member of the series (a', b', 
c', d'), but is present to each member of the series, (a'd' 9 
b'd', c'd'), and to the whole, in a way in which they are not 
present to each other. 

For instance, he desires his pleasure ; and he desires the 
movement which is his means to his pleasure; but he has 
no pleasure in the movement itself. His desire saturates 
his sense-impression, a' ', of the saucer of milk, and his 
pleasure c', and his memory and anticipation of pleasure, 
and it is surely the true causal determinant of his move- 
ment b. And if you say (the parallelist is bound to say 
it, since he is committed to the teleological view of the 
series a', b', c',), if you say and insist that his desire d% 
is determined by his pleasure c% which thus appears as 
the final cause of the movement b, still, you cannot elimi- 
nate the factor of desire without doing violence to the 
whole series with which it is so intimately platted up. I 
think, therefore, you are driven to acknowledge it, not as 
the final cause — for pleasure fills up that role quite ade- 
quately — and not as the immediate working cause — for 
that is a complicated affair of nervous discharges and 
muscular tissues — but as the determinant of (or ruling 
causal factor in) the movement b. 



SOME QUESTION'S OF PSYCHOLOGY 103 

Then you have got as clear a case of that trespass which 
is interaction as the Animist could well desire. 

And the Parallelisms dilemma stands thus: If he was 

justified in regarding the series, a b which stands for 

the neural lines of least resistance representing habit associ- 
ation and habit memory, if he is justified in regarding this 
series as sufficiently determining b, he is obliged to ignore 
the obviously existing psychic factors of pleasure and de- 
sire, determinants of series a! V. But as, in any case, 

on his own showing, it must have been sense-impression a' 
that started the whole business, some form of causation 
other than the teleological has surreptitiously crept in on 
the psychic line, contrary to the sacred law laid down by 
himself in the beginning. Eor, clearly, without the psychic 
intervention of the original sense-impression, a', the pre- 
cise and particular fact we are considering, though pos- 
sible, would not have been actually accomplished. 

So that, in the most elementary process of psycho- 
physical life, his rule which forbids interaction has been 
broken. 

If, on the other hand, he acknowledges — as he is bound 
to do — the existence of the psychic factors, pleasure and 
desire, he will find one of them, desire, breaking loose 
obstreperously from the teleological line and invading 
(again !) the causal side as determinant of the movement b. 

In this case he has, to add to his embarrassment, a whole 

psychic series within a! b' , in which c f and d' stand 

as the chief factors, a whole psychic series for which it 
would be hard to find point for point correspondence on the 
physical line. 

Parallelism therefore breaks down badly in three places : 
its law which demands correspondence breaks down ; and 
its law which forbids cross-correspondence breaks down; 
and its law which distinguishes between causal and tele- 
ological lines breaks down; and a better diagram of the 
real situation would stand thus : 



104 



A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 



Physical fine 



Psychic line 




You have there a vision of the entire collapse, of the 
most obvious crumpling and buckling and cross-cutting of 
the lines; while the Animist has established a sort of as- 
cending spiral as his image. (I must not father this image 
on Mr. McDougall; but I think it is justified by the en- 
semble of the process. ) 

And yet we have not got farther than the simple psy- 
chology of Professor Thorndike's Cat. 

Imagine then what a diagram would look like that at- 
tempted to represent the higher psychic processes of man, 
the complex play of many motives, determining one of 
many actions seen to be possible and desirable; the con- 
flict between desire and will ; the element of choice — the 
will darting like a shuttle to and fro among all those in- 
finite threads and weaving them to its own pattern, t Add 
to this the emotions saturating the web with their own 
colours; and consider that you have not yet allowed for 
the intellectual fabric, different and distinct from this 
play of action and emotion and desire, yet hardly distin- 
guishable, so close is the psychic web, so intricate the 
pattern. 

When you come to the work of the adult human intelli- 
gence (we do not yet know enough about animal intelli- 
gence to say with any certainty what goes on there), to 



SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 105 

even such an apparently simple operation as the perception 
of an object in space, and of its relation to other objects 
in space, it is even more obvious that you are no longer 
dealing with a series alone but with a synthesis. Add to 
this — what is inseparable from it — the perception of 
change, of the succession of events in time, and your syn- 
thesis will be a synthesis of successions and juxtapositions, 
or contemporaneous existences, in which events will be per- 
ceived as moving one after another and altogether, against 
a complex background of objects immobile in space. Add 
to this the mere perception of their innumerable relations, 
and to this the higher operations of the intellect, the in- 
numerable concepts involved in the most elementary proc- 
ess of acquiring knowledge, and you get a series of syn- 
theses and the synthesis of this series. Add the opera- 
tions of judgment and of reasoning, inseparably bound up 
with this process ; then abstract these operations from the 
process and examine them ; you will find, not only that they 
follow a certain fixed order of their own (the laws of in- 
ductive and deductive logic), but that yet another opera- 
tion has crept in — analysis, and that these syntheses, so 
laboriously built up in consciousness, are in consciousness 
dissolved and broken up, in order that new syntheses, new 
combinations, associations and arrangements may be 
formed. 

This is Wundt's principle of the " creative resultants " 
with a vengeance. 

As Mr. McDougall points out, with that one rash word 
" creative " Wundt gives the whole show of psycho-physical 
Parallelism away. And I do not think it is unfair to 
hold him to it. There is no wriggling out of the awkward 
position it has created for him. And if we are offered 
our choice between Parallelism and Interaction I can see 
no grounds for hesitation. 

Parallelism is a sort of psychological book-keeping by 
double entry, under such conditions that the values, on 



106 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

whose constancy the integrity of the result depends, change, 
not only between the dates of invoice and account, but with 
every separate item in the ledger. So that the parallelisms 
books never really balance. Whereas the Interactionist 
allows for every fluctuation in the values, while equally 
pledged to the austerity and sanctity of book-keeping. 

Now I think the fact of psycho-physical interaction is 
fairly demonstrated. But so far from giving us the meta- 
physical security we are seeking, it leaves that side of the 
problem as much as ever in the dark. Psychology suggests 
the ultimate questions it cannot answer. 

We cannot strike a balance of interactions and say 
whether physical or psychic action tips the scale. We do 
not know how far psychic action can modify the order of 
physical events. There are certain long-established, not 
to say invariable sequences, such as the course of the stars 
and the formation of water from the union of H 2 with 
which we are pretty sure it cannot interfere. You can 
persuade a plant or an animal to breed and grow the way 
you want it — within certain strictly defined and very im- 
portant limits. But you cannot force a single particle of 
inorganic matter to behave contrary to its pre-established 
habit. Still there are certain physical alterations that you 
can effect. You can dam back the tides and divert the 
course of rivers. You can change the outward appearance 
of the habitable globe by merely displacing things on its 
surface. You can turn steam into a cylinder so as to drive 
an engine. You can so regulate a current of electricity or 
an explosion of petrol as to make them do the same thing. 
So that, if a diagram could be drawn showing the physical 
results of the psychic processes of a few enterprising indi- 
viduals it might not equal our imaginary psychic diagram 
in complexity, but it would be a very imposing and intri- 
cate affair. 

Shut up a puppy by himself in your study when he is 



SOME QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 107 

teething, or let loose a speculative builder over a square 
mile of virgin wood and field ; and observe the change their 
psychic processes will effect in the order and integrity of 
material objects. In twenty minutes the puppy has 
gnawed the backs off your books and worried the hearthrug 
to shreds, stained the carpet by upsetting the ink over it, 
and, having eaten the best part of your manuscript, he is 
about to change its chemical composition when you find 
him at his work. In a year's time the builder has caused 
the virgin wood to disappear and has covered the fields 
with streets of houses which show in outward forms of 
conglomerated bricks and mortar the inner hideousness 
of his soul. 

True, the puppy and the builder have been obliged to use 
physical machinery to achieve these physical results, pit- 
ting one set of physical forces and one arrangement of 
molecules against another. Still, all this continuous con- 
struction and destruction has involved continuous psychic 
effort ; so that all along the series there will be innumer- 
able points where the physical processes are no longer trace- 
able, and the psychic processes come into play. 

But when we try to estimate the proportion of psychic 
effort to physical result we find we are dealing with incom- 
mensurables. 29 So many bricks laid, so many psychic 
processes involved in the laying of each. We can count 
the bricks ; but we cannot count the psychic processes ; 
neither can we gauge the intensity of the psychic state at 
each moment of the process. 

And so far we have only been dealing with one side of 
the total operation, with extension, and the displacement 
and rearrangement of objects in space. When we come to 
time, all possible correspondence ceases. You can measure 
the time taken to lay each brick, and calculate from it the 
number of months it will take to complete the entire 
scheme of the Estate ; but you cannot measure the time of 
the psychic processes, for the simple reason that those proc- 



108 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

esses are more than processes, they are syntheses. And 
with them we are brought back once more to the unity of 
consciousness. 

And we are once more driven to ask : 

1. Is there any unity outside our consciousness that cor- 

responds with this unity within it ? 

2. If so, is that unity also a unity of consciousness ? Or 

rather: Is there anything in that unity from 
which we may infer that where it is there is con- 
sciousness ? 

3. Is there anything in both unities from which we may 

infer an ultimate unity ? 
Once more, the long round that we have fetched by way 
of biology and psychology has landed us in ultimate ques- 
tions of metaphysics. 



IV 

SOME ULTIMATE QUESTIONS OF 
METAPHYSICS 

It will be remembered that we adopted Mr. McDougall's 
classification of metaphysical systems provisionally, and 
with considerable reservations, in order that he might do 
his own deadly work among them unhindered. We have 
seen him do it. We have seen how far he has justified the 
hypothesis of a self or soul as the unique ground of the 
unity of consciousness. And we must admit that he has 
certainly delivered it from the worst assaults of the physio- 
logical psychologists. 

He has done this, apparently, by demonstrating the 
principle of psycho-physical interaction. 

But this is by no means the end of the matter. I think 
we may ask him at least four questions. 

1. How, without recourse to some metaphysical prin- 

ciple, does he propose to maintain the unity of 
consciousness throughout the interactions ? 

2. How would he explain the soul's action in the con- 

struction of time and space ? 

3. What holds body and soul together ? 

4. What holds the multiplicity of souls together ? 
Surely (1), unless body and soul are one, or aspects of 

an underlying Eeality which is one, each interruption of 

either into the other's territory must be a break, however 

slight, of their respective unities. And this, whether the 

law does or does not hold good eternally, that the cause must 

pass over into its effect. Interaction is interaction. Now, 

whatever the unity of matter may be, unity of conscious- 

109 



110 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

ness is the unique arm of the Animist. Take it from him 
and he is powerless. 

Mr. McDougall is aware of his danger, and he tries to 
reduce the soul's action to something less than cause and 
more than correspondence. But the danger is only masked 
and not removed. Once admit interaction, with its result- 
ing changes, and not only is the powerful charm of Paral- 
lelism broken, but the Animist himself is committed to 
the whole causal relation. 

That relation is not like an unhappy love-affair with the 
" reciprocity all on one side." It is not the simple affair 
of body as cause, telescoping into soul, and soul, as cause, 
telescoping back into body; but each contributes to the 
effect. This double relation of cause and effect alters the 
ensemble so profoundly that to talk any more of dualism is 
absurd. 

Even granted (2) that each interaction is simul- 
taneous and not successive, the whole series of interactions 
constitutes a process, a series in time. If you presuppose 
a " real " time, you are promptly landed in all the dilemmas 
which M. Bergson, for one, has shown to be inherent in 
that idea. 30 If the soul supplies, as it were, its own time, 
then you have a psychic action covering the whole psycho- 
physical performance in one very extensive and necessary 
relation. And the same holds good of space. 

What holds the high interacting parties, body and soul, 
together? (3) 

(This question follows from Question 1.) As long as 
they were parallel they could be considered as holding them- 
selves together; but, as we have seen, their unities are 
broken. Surely a system of interactions cries for a unity 
just as loudly as a system of states of consciousness ? 

As for the fourth and last question: What holds the 
multiplicity of souls together ? Since the souls interact 
on each other, their system of interactions calls for unity. 

I do not think that these questions can be set aside as 



SOME QUESTIONS OF METAPHYSICS 111 

frivolous. They are perfectly legitimate problems arising 
out of the case ; and Animism provides no solution of them. 

When it comes to unities, as on the Animist's own show- 
ing it must and does come, if the unity of consciousness 
only holds good within and of consciousness, then physical 
unity, if there be any, will hold good within and of bodies 
or matter generally ; so that, in the last resort — and 
there must always be a last resort — each unity will form 
a " closed system " ; and the Animist must be numbered 
among the parallelists. I do not see how, without re- 
course to a metaphysical principle and a metaphysical 
unity, he is to escape from the position. 

It is clear that in that classification of systems which I 
have borrowed from Mr. McDougall we are dealing with 
two things : Psychophysics, which has no philosophic axe 
to grind, and Metaphysics. 

Neither Animism nor Psychophysical Parallelism pro- 
fesses to give us a Metaphysic or a Metapsychic ; but only 
certain psychophysical postulates. 

It should also be clear that, however much we may wish 
to separate them, we cannot, as a matter of fact, keep them 
apart, if we are to go on with — I won't say finish — our 
thinking. 

And I think it should be transparently clear that neither 
empirical nor a priori metaphysics can take up any im- 
pregnable position outside Psychophysiology, and will not 
advance very far, or at any rate very safely, as long as it 
ignores the psychophysical facts, however radiantly honest 
its attitude may be. 

But it may not have been equally clear that Psycho- 
physiology cannot keep itself unspotted by some Meta- 
physic or another ; that is to say, if it is to go on with its 
thinking. It can, and we have seen that it does, volun- 
tarily arrest its thinking on its own borders and refuse to 
take the metaphysical plunge ; but, with the first step over, 
and not even with the first step but with the first look, with 



112 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

the affirmation that there is, and with the affirmation that 
there is not sl region beyond its border, it is in. Only the 
non-committal attitude that acknowledges that there may 
be a region will save it from the plunge. 

But if the Psychophysiologist goes on thinking he is 
committed to a metaphysic. For there is a lurking meta- 
physic in his most empirical conclusions, and even in his 
non-committal attitude. 

Let us look back at the systems we considered. They 
may be reduced to three types, as far as body and soul are 
concerned. 

1. Monism : the systems of the One. 

2. Parallelist Dualism : the systems of the Two (with or 

without assumption of an underlying One). 

3. Animism : or the theory of the Mixed. 

To these, as we leave the ground of Psychophysics, we 
shall have to add Pluralism in its three forms of : 

1. Pragmatism, 

2. Humanism, and the 

3. New Realism, 

which are all systems of the Many. 

Of these the New Realism is so new, so revolutionary, 
so dangerous to every form of Monism we have consid- 
ered hitherto, that it calls for special treatment later on 
and in a place apart. 

I have not insulted the Animist by putting him among 
the Parallel-liners, where, I think, if he finished his think- 
ing he would have to go; because he may quite honestly 
and legitimately decline to finish it. But I have not fol- 
lowed Mr. McDougall, this time, in putting Objective 
Idealism (which is somewhat inadequately rendered by 
"Psychical Monism") among the Parallelisms; for I do 
not think this arrangement is fair to a philosophy which 
cuts the knot by maintaining, with a stoutness verging on 
apoplexy, that the world arises in consciousness, that it 



SOME QUESTIONS OF METAPHYSICS 113 

exists in and through and for consciousness, and that con- 
sciousness is the " Thing-in-Itself " ; which thus begins its 
thinking with consciousness as the totality of experience, 
and finishes it there. 

If we consider each one of these systems in turn we shall 
find that there is not one of them, no, not even the most 
non-committal that has not its own dilemma. 

The dilemma of the out-and-out Materialist is that 
he must either admit that consciousness does not come al- 
together into his net, or he must break his own sacred law 
of the conservation of energy. In any case, if he says that 
psychic processes are an illusory by-product of physical 
processes, he fails to show why they should be conscious 
processes. 

The dilemma of the out-and-out Subjective Idealist, or 
Self-Aloner, is that he must either deny the existence of 
other consciousnesses, and of things he is not conscious of 
and never could be; or he must give up his fundamental 
hypothesis of his own solitary existence. If he turns the 
materialist's position upside down and says that his ego 
produces the physical series as the illusory by-product of 
its own psychic series, he fails to show why it should be at 
the pains of projecting any physical aspect of its psychic 
states, why there should be an illusory appearance of a 
parallel at all. If he says that there is no parallelism 
and only one series, his own psychic states, he fails to ac- 
count for the existence of any consciousness other than the 
one he started with — his own. Still less can he account 
for the order of physical things in ante-psychic time. For 
if there is no universe outside his private consciousness, 
the universe that physical science shows us as existing pre- 
vious to the appearance of his consciousness is a retro- 
spective illusion; and the manifestations of his neigh- 
bour's consciousness are a past, present and future illusion ; 
and his neighbour's consciousness itself, with the universe 
it carries about in it, is the illusory hypothesis of his 



114 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

thought. Worse still, as he is not conscious of his own 
neural processes, they also cannot be allowed to exist ; their 
existence for another consciousness, that of the scientific 
observer, is not existence in any consciousness; it must 
therefore share the illusory quality of all that attaches to 
his neighbour and his neighbour's consciousness. 

Worst of all, his own ego, the self which should be at 
the bottom of the whole show, to produce and maintain 
the system of illusions, can have no existence either ; since 
it does not and cannot appear in its own consciousness. 
The formula for this theory must be: Consciousness is 
just consciousness, of nothing, for nobody; and it is no- 
body's consciousness. 

So that the out-and-out Self-Aloner must either show 
reason why he should exist in this solitary and unsup- 
ported manner ; which he cannot do, as he has no grounds 
to establish his self on except himself ; or he must acknowl- 
edge the existence of a world — if it be a world of selves 
— outside himself, in which case he is no longer a Self- 
Aloner. 

Mr. McDougall has very clearly shown the sad plight 
of the Parallelist. His attitude has no intervals of re- 
pose. The more strictly parallelist he is, the more he 
denies interaction, the more he has to keep jumping back- 
wards and forwards from one of his lines to the other; in 
which case he has to admit that there is a jumping-off- 
place and a landing-place somewhere, that is to say, a 
common terra firma for thinking and acting on both lines. 
His dilemma is like the Materialist's. He cannot keep 
his rules and his principle too. 

The dilemma of the Animist, as I have tried to show, 
is that without some " higher unity " to solder them, his 
unity of consciousness, and the unity of all physical things, 
finally form closed systems of penultimates running par- 
allel ; so that in the long run (his long run) he is landed 
in a dilemma as serious as any he has exposed. Either 



SOME QUESTIONS OF METAPHYSICS 115 

he must make the totals of psychic and of physical interac- 
tions equal and opposite, an assumption which he has no 
grounds for; in which case, by the law of causation, they 
will cease to be interactions, and will form one action and 
one phenomenon; or, while insisting on partial interac- 
tion, he must acknowledge a greater unknown second quan- 
tity of actions and phenomena running parallel. In either 
case the unity of consciousness is broken. 

There are dilemmas and dilemmas. 

There are dilemmas inherent in the nature of a system. 
Such are the dilemmas of the Materialist and Idealist 
by-product theories. 

There are dilemmas which are latent in a system, of 
which the upholders of the systems are more or less aware. 
Such are the dilemmas of the strict Parallelist and the 
Animist. Wundt virtually abandoned his Parallelism in 
his principle of the creative resultants. You feel that Mr. 
McDougall has either. a monistic or a pluralistic solution 
up his sleeve, if his conscience as a man of science would 
allow him to produce it. 

And there are dilemmas which are much more apparent 
to the critics of a system than to its supporters. Such are 
the dilemmas of the Imperfect Parallelist, or devotee of the 
Underlying Unknown, and of the Psychical Monist or 
Objective Idealist. 

I have left the dilemmas of these Monists to the last, 
because there are dilemmas and dilemmas ; and because, 
since it must needs be that dilemmas come, they seem 
rather less unbearable than any of the others. 

The dilemma of the upholders of the Underlying Un- 
known and Unknowable is that, in order to prove that it is 
there at all, they have to assume it to be knowable, and in- 
deed known; inasmuch as it is the ground of its own as- 
pects and appearances. When you have said of your Un- 



116 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

knowable that it is Underlying, or that it is Substance, or 
the only Reality, or the Thing-in-Itself, you have already 
dragged it in the net of knowledge. When you have added 
that it is Infinite or Absolute, you have to all intents 
and purposes caught it and made it the object of your think- 
ing. The one thing you absolutely don't know about it is 
whether it does or does not exist. You cannot predicate 
of it that reality which was the raison d'etre of your af- 
firming it at all. 

Either you must give up its reality, by virtue of which 
you declared it to be unknown and unknowable ; in which 
case your Monism has the bottom knocked out of it, and 
you are left with the dual aspects on your hands ; or, de- 
claring it to be the only real, you give up its unknowable- 
ness, and, by defining it, have brought it in under that 
aspect and manifestation which is thought. 

This feat which his predecessors performed involun- 
tarily, is the serious and deliberate accomplishment of the 
Objective Idealist. There is but one step from the Un- 
derlying Unknown Eeality to Thought as the Thing-in- 
Itself. 

The Objective Idealist does not worry about dilemmas. 
Consciousness can swallow them all. There is nothing 
that it cannot swallow. They are logical dilemmas, are 
they not ? Very well, then. Already they fall within 
consciousness. They are expressed in terms of conscious- 
ness and lend themselves most obligingly to the expression. 
He does not worry about the world outside him. It is 
outside his body, not outside consciousness; his body is 
part of it, and both it and his body are expressible in terms 
of consciousness. Why seek, or why assume other modes 
of expression? If you remind him that, on his own 
showing, Nature is the " other " of Thought, he will say, 
What if it is ? Doesn't that prove that it falls within 
consciousness, since otherness is a " thought-relation " ? 



SOME QUESTIONS OF METAPHYSICS 117 

What is Nature but a network of relations, and what are 
relations but the work of thought ? The terms of the re- 
lation? You don't suppose I've been so simple as not to 
allow for them? What are your precious terms when 
all's said and done, and you've analysed all the thought 
out of them? Sensations; and if sensation is not con- 
sciousness I should like to know what is. Changes, you 
say, not of consciousness nor for consciousness ? Changes, 
let me tell you, that wind up in sensation, bang in con- 
sciousness. Changes, every one of them, in the outside 
world. World outside what ? Consciousness ? Not a bit 
of it. Outside and inside are terms — if it's terms you're 
talking about — of consciousness, or rather, they are 
thought-relations. Can you see " outside " ? Can you 
hear " outside " or touch it ? Outside (and inside) ex- 
ists only in and for thought. 

World in time and space? I believe you; and where, 
if you please, are time and space if not in consciousness ? 
And what are they if not terms — there you are again — 
of consciousness ? 

Changes of matter ? All we know of matter is expres- 
sible in terms of consciousness; and what we don't know 
of matter is not material to my argument. Your argu- 
ment? Your argument doesn't matter so much, either; 
but — since you insist — you're not claiming, are you, 
that matter is the Thing-in-Itself ? Consciousness is the 
Thing-in-Itself. You think matter as we do not know it 
may be? But what sort of matter is that? I thought 
you were an empiricist ; if you are, you've no business to 
jump like that from the known to the unknown; and if 
you're not, you'd very much better come in with me. Di- 
rect his attention to the triumphant existence of the Paral- 
lel-liner's physical line (or what is left of it after the Ani- 
mist has done with it), the neural and brain processes which 
never are in consciousness, and he will smile patiently at 
your fatuity while he tells you that ? if they do not exist 



118 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

as sense perceptions for your consciousness, or his, they 
exist in and for both as knowledges; and, even if they 
were not in his consciousness, or yours, they are in some 
consciousness as knowledges; and that there is no reason 
why they should not exist as sense-perceptions for a con- 
sciousness so constituted as to perceive them sensibly. 
Talk to him of forces and of energies, and of the conserva- 
tion of energy, of the imperceptible ultimate constituents 
of matter, of ether and electrons, and all the impalpable 
and imponderable postulates of physical science, and he 
will floor you with the same argument. Draw for him 
the picture of the aeons of past time, of solar systems 
rolling unperceived through space, of lifeless seas, and of 
glacial ranges subsisting in their august and solitary un- 
knownness before sense and thought were ever dreamed of, 
and he will repeat that the picture itself is not only drawn 
in lines of consciousness but coloured deeply with its dyes ; 
and he will ask you where and when these spectatorless 
dramas could have been played, if not in space and time, 
which he maintains, not without a show of reason, to be 
thought-relations which need no duplicate; and he will 
invite you in your turn to eliminate all possible forms of 
consciousness from the universe, and picture, if you can, 
how much would be left of it. 

Mr. McDougall cannot hope to disconcert him with that 
little joke about eating without an eater and without any- 
thing to eat, any more than you could shatter Kant with 
the old pragmatist wheeze of the thousand thalers; both 
instances being drawn from a region below the level of the 
enquiry. He takes his stand on the firm ground that con- 
sciousness at any rate is " given " ; and if you are indis- 
creet enough to talk about eating, his obvious answer is 
that he alone among philosophers is not trying to eat his 
cake and have it too. He alone is unthreatened by either 
horn of a dilemma. 

And when angry with him, this time, you turn and ask 



SOME QUESTIONS OF METAPHYSICS 119 

him how he dare mention Kant, who was worth fifteen of 
him, he will refer you to Kant's Prolegomena to any 
Future Metaphysic, and swear that Kant was on his side 
all the time with his unity of apperception, only that he 
hadn't the courage to say so. He will add that Kant de- 
liberately dished the Transcendental Realist (or Absolute 
Idealist) show in order to exalt Practical Keason at 
Pure Reason's expense, and prove himself the most moral 
man in Konigsberg. He will suggest, not without plausi- 
bility, that if people would only read Kant's Prolegomena 
and his Critique of Judgment more, and the two Critiques 
of Reason a little less, they would see that there wasn't 
such a great difference between him and the Idealists after 
all. 

At this point you will perhaps remind him that Hegel's 
Naturphilosophie was not exactly a work its author could 
be proud of ; and that Naturphilosophie was ever the weak 
spot in the Idealist's armour; but he will stand his 
ground, protesting that, if Hegel had not been so bent on 
keeping his chair at Berlin by bolstering up the doctrine of 
the Trinity, he would have been more in earnest with 
the " otherness " of Nature ; he would, that is to say, have 
seen that if Nature is to be the " other " of Thought, the 
more otherly she behaves the better, and that that is why 
Nature kicks against the Triple Dialectic. 

If you ask him what he will do, supposing, just suppos- 
ing, it should be proved to-morrow that Nature did get in 
first, and that consciousness really was an illusory by- 
product, he might be staggered for a moment, but he would 
recover on the assurance that, even in this case, conscious- 
ness would come out on top; seeing that, once the affair 
was hnown, the scientific explanation of it must necessarily 
be given in terms of consciousness. 

In fact, I don't think the prospect would really stagger 
him even for a moment. You cannot starve into surren- 
der a system with such a prodigious " swallow," nor 



120 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

" down " an opponent with such an inexhaustible capacity 
for retort. 

Almost yon could believe that Objective Idealism is the 
winning horse, and that you could do worse than back it. 

Almost, but not quite. The Objective Idealist's horse 
is a remarkably fine animal, and of an incomparable speed. 
He can cover the greatest possible space in the smallest pos- 
sible time, and you cannot " wind " him. That the Ob- 
jective Idealist's wind is his only merit is the opinion of 
most people who have tried to hold out under his inter- 
minable recitative ; whereas his great and undeniable merit 
is his almost infantile simplicity. But he is vulnerable in 
two places. 

Ask him what he makes of unconscious thinking, of 
sleep and of forgetting, which are small holes, but still 
palpable holes in the general web of consciousness, holes 
which can never be filled up by the device of calling them 
knowledges; he ought to be able to say that no conscious- 
ness is lost for ever, but that things lost for us and for- 
gotten are stored and remembered in the Absolute; but 
unless he is an Absolute Idealist he cannot say it. 

Ask him what he makes of the great energies of in- 
stinct and of love, of will and purpose and action, of con- 
science and ethical values and aesthetic values, and he 
will tell you that he makes nothing of them except that 
they are states of consciousness like any other, and — if 
he is consistent — that one state of consciousness is as 
good, because it is as real as any other. 

He is either so absorbed in his vast vision of the world 
" arising in consciousness," so satisfied with his fairly 
easy reduction of everything in the universe to states of 
consciousness, or so intent on his series of unanswerable 
repartees, that he has never paused to consider what con- 
sciousness itself may be doing all the time, and how its 
states are behaving among themselves. 

And his secret dilemma, which he will not acknowledge, 



SOME QUESTIONS OE METAPHYSICS 121 

is this : He lias cut the Thing-in-Itself very cleverly out 
of the problem aud packed all Reality into states of con- 
sciousness ; not my states, or your states, but all the states 
of all the consciousness there is ; so that the sum of Reality 
will be simply the sum of the states. No state of con- 
sciousness, on his own showing, can be more real than any 
other state. But Totality, the sum of all states, must be 
more real than any one state or any number of states. So 
that his Reality is purely quantitative, and every lapse of 
consciousness, no matter whose or what — and these lapses 
are constantly occurring — will be a dead loss of reality 
to the Universe. And unless he can show that this loss is 
made good somewhere and made good all the time, reality 
must suffer very seriously. In order to make good the 
loss, he must give up his assumption that all states of con- 
sciousness are equally real ; so that he may protect himself 
by the further assumption that what the Universe has lost 
in quantity it has gained in quality (which is impossible 
to prove). In this case he must either abandon his theory 
of consciousness as sufficient reality in itself, or he must 
take refuge in an Absolute Consciousness. Say that, like 
a wise man, he takes sanctuary. Even then he is no better 
off. Eor he cannot contend that his Absolute is real qua 
Absolute. Consciousness being the only reality, his Abso- 
lute can be only real qua Consciousness. So that, strictly 
speaking, he had no right to summon it qua Absolute to 
his aid. But he has done it, and is now faced with the 
further dilemma. If Consciousness is only real qua Ab- 
solute, all those states of consciousness which, on his own 
showing, consisted chiefly, or entirely, of thought-relations 
are unreal. He cannot save himself by picking out the 
terms of the relation from the relation and declaring them 
real; for it was just their capacity for entering into rela- 
tions that entitled them to reality within his closed sys- 
tem. Nor can he purchase reality for them by merging 
them with his Absolute, except at the price of the Oneness 



122 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

to which he was pledged. For then he has indeed found 
the true home of the irreducible term (shorn of its thought- 
relations), which must be held henceforth to exist within 
the Absolute with all the absolute reality of the Absolute ; 
yet, at one blow, he has deprived of reality his entire sys- 
tem of thought-relations. It is all up with the " diamond 
net " in which he had so skilfully ensnared the uni- 
verse. 

He must now confess that appearance, not to say unreal- 
ity, in the form of relativity, enters largely into conscious- 
ness ; since Absolute Consciousness is the only Real. This 
appearance must either exist within Absolute Conscious- 
ness, infecting it with relativity ; besides setting up a schism 
inside it as against the " real " terms ; or it exists in states 
of consciousness outside it; in which case Absolute Con- 
sciousness will be set up over against Relative Conscious- 
ness in a relation of absolute to relative ; when it is all up 
with the Absolute. 

Even the Self-Aloner is not in a more horrible position. 
He can swallow the entire Universe, and the Absolute 
with it, in one sacramental mouthful, since at least he has 
given himself a " Self " to swallow with. 

Now, when we behold the collapse of one metaphysical 
system after another, and of one psycho-physical theory 
after another, and find the cause of the collapse in some 
inherent dilemma, three courses are open to us. 

We may abandon all systems and all theories henceforth 
and for ever. This is the counsel of prudence and of 
caution. It is also the counsel of intellectual despair. 

Or we may try to build up another system and another 
theory out of all the old ruins on a new site. This is what 
has been done with metaphysical systems from time imme- 
morial, and done with perfect ease; it merely involves 
shifting the material and rearranging the already general- 
ized terms of the problem. But we cannot play in the 



SOME QUESTIONS OF METAPHYSICS 123 

same light-hearted fashion with psychophysical material, 
which has its own attachments and its own territory, and 
refuses obstinately to be shifted on to new ground. In 
any case, the chances are that our precious erection would 
have most of the bad points of its predecessors with a spe- 
cial and incurable shakiness of its own. 

Or we may go back to the old systems and the old theo- 
ries, to see whether they had anything in common, and if 
so what, and try to find out the root of the dilemmas which 
were the cause of their collapse. We have got to face the 
fact that the psychophysical problem has complicated our 
problem very seriously. 

Supposing we find that all, without exception, have a 
common interest and a common end, and that their several 
dilemmas have a common root, we shall have gained, not 
perhaps enough to build with, but enough not to despair 
of building henceforth and for ever. 

Now it cannot be maintained that all metaphysical sys- 
tems and theories seek unity, in the teeth — the really 
very sharp and ferocious teeth — of the New Kealism 
which has gone out of its way to avoid it. The New 
Realism is out and out Pluralism. But certainly all the 
systems and all the theories we have considered yet have 
this thing in common — the quest for unity, some kind of 
unity, no matter what. The desired One may be matter, 
or it may be mind ; it may be the Ego ; it may be just Con- 
sciousness; or it may be an unknown and unknowable 
tertium quid, Substance, Thing-in-Itself, the Absolute, the 
Unconscious, the Life-Force. It is implicit in the very 
dilemmas of the systems that have repudiated it. 

First, then, we have to see whether the dilemmas we 
have considered have a common root. 

We have seen Vitalism fall from one dilemma into an- 
other, because of the ultimate reality it ascribed to matter, 
and the metaphysical importance it gave to action. It 
seeks unity, it seeks reality, but it cannot find it. And 



124 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

the root of its dilemma is that it looked for ultimate reality 
in a penultimate place. 

The dilemma of the thorough-paced materialist was that 
he could only save his materialism at the cost of the em- 
pirical law he based it on. Clearly he would not have 
fallen into that dilemma if he had not given to matter an 
ultimate reality, and conceived it as doing what, as a 
purely mechanical phenomenon, it was powerless to do; 
besides giving to a purely physical law a metaphysical 
validity he should have been the last to claim for it. In 
other words, he looked for ultimate reality in the wrong 
place. 

The dilemma of the thorough-paced Subjective Idealist 
was that, in denying the existence of any reality outside 
himself, he cut away the ground from any possible proof 
of his own existence. Again the root of his dilemma was 
the quest of ultimate reality in the wrong place. 

The dilemma of the less consistent types of Parallel- 
liners was that, placing Reality in a mysterious third 
Something, expressly stated to be either Unconscious or 
not definable in terms of consciousness, they straightway 
fell into either defining it plumply and plainly in terms of 
consciousness, or bringing it into such relation with con- 
sciousness as to compromise very seriously its neutrality. 

The root of their dilemma was that, while they distin- 
guished clearly between appearance and reality, and recog- 
nized that body and soul, matter and mind, brain processes 
and consciousness, are equally phenomenal, they yet placed 
Reality in some Third Principle from which they had 
previously abstracted every sign and mark of the Real. 
They also were looking for Reality in the wrong place. 

The dilemma of the thorough-paced Parallel-liner was 
that, the harder he drove his system on two lines, the more 
it tended to leave them. And the root of the dilemma is 
again the same. In renouncing the quest of the Ultimate 
Reality he is obliged to ascribe to mere psychophysical 



SOME QUESTIONS OF METAPHYSICS 125 

processes the metapsychic and metaphysical functions they 
have not. If you cannot say that he, too, has looked for 
ultimate reality in the wrong place, since he was not look- 
ing for it at all, he has looked on at the usurpation of its 
place and power. 

Nor can it be said that Objective Idealism, or even that 
Absolute Idealism escapes', in spite of its tremendous 
swallow. If the Vitalist makes too much of action, the 
Objective Idealist makes too little. His dilemma was 
that, having defined reality in such terms of consciousness 
as to eliminate all elements of consciousness other than 
thought-relations, he infected his Absolute with relativity, 
and was forced to deny to Thought the ultimate reality 
he had claimed for it in the beginning. 

The root of his dilemma is transparent. He, too, 
looked for ultimate reality in the wrong place, in conscious- 
ness held together by thought-relations and by nothing 
else. 

Animism is safe from dilemma only so long as it has 
not declared openly against metaphysical Monism. It 
would be unfair to press any argument hostile to Pluralism 
against Animism as represented by Mr. McDougall, still 
more unfair to fasten on him an opinion he would dis- 
allow. His is clearly a case of suspended judgment. So 
long as he forbears to take the final plunge into any meta- 
physical gulf I have no right to picture him as hovering 
on the brink. 

Leaving Animism, then, to its suspended judgment, we 
may say that, with this doubtful exception, all those sys- 
tems and theories, psychophysical or metaphysical, had 
some one ultimate reality for their common end. And all, 
in mistaking one or other set of appearances for ultimate 
reality, or one part of reality for the Whole, have betrayed 
the common root of their dilemmas. 

All looked for Reality, looked for Unity, and looked for 
it in the wrong place. 



126 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

It would seem, then, that the universe is not built up 
from the Life-Force in action upon matter alone; nor 
from Matter itself alone; nor from the Individual Self 
alone ; nor from an Unknown and Unknowable alone ; nor 
from Body and Soul alone ; nor from Consciousness alone ; 
still less from Thought alone that lands you in the barren 
Absolute. 

But, if there were one term that would cover all these 
terms: Life-Force; Matter; Individual Self; Substance; 
Thing-in-Itself, the Unknown and Unknowable or possible 
Third; Soul; Consciousness; Thought; the Absolute; one 
term which, besides covering all these, covers also that 
which has slipped away from them — Will and Love, 
that term, could we find it, would stand for the Reality 
we want. We want a term infinitely comprehensive, and 
perfectly elastic ; and a term that does some modest sacri- 
fice to the Unknown. For the vice of those terms was 
that none was elastic, none was comprehensive; but that 
some one excluded, inevitably, some other. 

If we could put that term in every place where we have 
used those others I do not think that the same dilemmas 
would arise. 

To the Unity and the Reality we are looking, for we can 
give no name but Spirit. This leaves a wide margin for 
the Unknown. 



PRAGMATISM AND HUMANISM 

The doctrine of the One has been worked so hard and 
so incessantly and with snch passionate variance among 
its adherents as to the nature of their " One," that the 
reaction against it was bound to set in, and the tendency 
of modern metaphysical thought is in favour of the Two 
or the Many. 

It was said that there are dilemmas latent in a system, 
of which the upholders of the system are more or less 
aware. 

But a system may have a dilemma lurking in it of which 
its upholder is not at all aware. 

Pragmatism and Humanism are such systems. At first 
sight they seem, like Psychophysical Parallelism, to be 
exceptions; but they also are exceptions that pay an un- 
conscious homage to the rule, an unconscious craving for 
the unity they spurn. 

The spurning, of course, was inevitable, by way of a 
change. Mr. P. C. S. Schiller, ostensibly a Pluralist, 
subsides into a sort of ethical Dualism; 31 while Mr. Wil- 
liam James is all for a Pluralistic Universe. Even Mr. 
McDougall, who may be suspected of cherishing some sort 
of metaphysical principle up his sleeve (he has at least 
deprecated the imputation of metaphysical Dualism), 
even Mr. McDougall joins with the pragmatists in robust 
derision of the monist, the slave of his " appetite for 
unity." They deny that the craving for unity is a uni- 
versal craving, or even a legitimate hunger. They do not 

127 



128 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

feel it; no good pragmatist could feel it; the vast majority 
of mankind are born utterly without it; therefore it is 
clear that it is by no means a universal need. They do 
not go quite so far as to say that it doesn't exist, since cer- 
tain absurd people do feel it ; but they let you see that they 
regard the sincerity of these people as more dubious than 
their absurdity. 

Besides this suggestion of insincerity, the unpopular 
monist is taunted with his supposed belief that his One 
is holier and " nobler," than the Many ; whereas what he 
does believe is that, as an ultimate metaphysical principle, 
it is more necessary. 

The driving wedge of the pragmatic humanist's attack 
on Monism is practically its argument ad hominem. 
" Humanism," Mr. Schiller says, " like Common Sense, 
of which it may claim to be the philosophic working-out, 
takes Man for granted as he stands, in the world of man's 
experience as it has come to seem to him." For, " even 
Pragmatism is not the final term of philosophic innova- 
tion: there is yet a greater and more sovereign principle 
now entering the lists, of which it can only claim to have 
been the forerunner and vicegerent." This is only an in- 
spired way of saying that Pragmatism lands you in 
Humanism, as indeed it does. As for the principles the 
miserable monist deals in — " Pure Being, the Idea, the 
Absolute, the Universal I " — what are they " but pitiful 
abstractions from experience, mutilated shreds of human 
nature, whose real value for the understanding of life is 
easily outweighed by the living experience of an honest 
man ? " 32 

There you are ; could anything be plainer ? If Man is 
not the Measure of all things, an honest man, besides be- 
ing the noblest work of God, is the measure of metaphysi- 
cal truth — and no other sort of man is. 

If the monist does not like the turn affairs are taking, 
he has nobody but himself to thank for it. 



PRAGMATISM AND HUMANISM 129 

Now the honest man, the plain man, the man in the 
street, Vhomme sensuel moyen, to whom Pragmatism 
makes its plain common-sense appeal, does not reckon 
among his familiar interests any conspicuous appetite for 
unity. He can grasp a working hypothesis applied to 
everyday life ; he can see the point of the little joke about 
Pot-and-Pantheism ; but you may " work " with two or 
five hundred ultimate principles for all he cares. And in 
the last resort it is on his utter indifference to the event 
that the pragmatist is banking when he frames his neat 
arguments against unity as a metaphysical ultimate and 
a necessity of metaphysical thought. 

It may turn out that unity is no such necessity; but 
surely the honest man's unawareness of it is neither here 
nor there? Ten to one the honest man will be equally 
unaware of the unity of consciousness until some psy- 
chologist or metaphysician explains the point to him ; but, 
when he sees it, ten to one, if he doesn't tell his informant 
to go — where bad metaphysicians do go, he will let him 
know that he could have told him that, in fewer words and 
with less trouble. For in matters that he does understand 
the honest man is very far from lacking in a sense of 
unity. 

Where the pragmatist will seem to the plain man to 
score is in taking the existence of the Many for granted 
"as it stands.'' The Many undoubtedly are there, and 
their existence does not, on the first blush of it, suggest 
the existence of the One. And the assumed existence of 
the One does not, in itself, help you to understand the 
existence of the Many. 

This statement sounds like common sense to the plain 
man. And as long as you are dealing with an abstract 
One, and an abstract Many (for the pluralisms Many is 
every bit as abstract as the monist's One), it is a true 
enough statement. But the humanist and pragmatist do 
not deal in abstractions. They deal with the Many of 



130 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

honest human experience, the Many as they stand. And 
the monist might retort : " Does the Many, then, as it 
stands, explain its own existence \ Do not all attempts to 
wring its secret from it end in generalizations which are 
unions and unities, not suggested by the Many as they 
stand, yet irresistible ? Did not the high priest of Prag- 
matism declare that : ' The most important sort of union 
that obtains among things, pragmatically speaking, is their 
generic unity ' f And that : i With no two things alike 
in the world, we should be unable to reason from our past 
experiences to our future ones?' And that: 'Absolute 
generic unity would obtain if there were one summum 
genus under which all things without exception could be 
eventually subsumed ' ? (William James, Pragmatism, 
pp. 139-140.) And does not Mr. Schiller declare that 
Matter is a ' baseless abstraction ' (Riddles of the Sphinx, 
p. 69) ; that c the development of Matter and Spirit pro- 
ceeds along converging lines ; and that by the time the su- 
persensible is reached, a single reality will be seen to em- 
brace the manifestations of both ' % " (Humanism, p. 
298.) So that unity would seem to have even a prag- 
matic sanction. 

Under all the pragmatist's cheerful appeals to the honest 
man there lies, half suppressed, a still more serious argu- 
ment. It turns on the combined unthinkability and non- 
existence of the One without the Many. But as the Many 
is equally unthinkable and equally non-existent without the 
One, this argument cuts both ways. Either side gains its 
advantage from the insidious substitution of the relative, 
predicative, quantitative, numerical " one " for the Abso- 
lute One of the monist. You might argue in this way that 
one pragmatist is unthinkable without many pragmatists, 
and one God (if there is a God) without many gods. The 
trouble is that, while we are sure of the pragmatists, we 
are not sure of the God. And this is precisely where the 
pragmatic pluralisms argument lands him ; and it is where 



PRAGMATISM AND HUMANISM 131 

he wishes to land, and always meant to land. For by in- 
sisting on the patent relativity of the one and the many, 
he is still sure of an easy victory when he works it the 
other way round: Many pragmatists are unthinkable 
without one pragmatist, and many gods without one god ; 
a proposition where the one pragmatist and the one god 
figure as the first units in a numerical series, which lands 
you again in palpable plurality. So that, by this sur- 
reptitious substitution of unit for unity, and of quantity 
for not-quantity, the pluralist gets plurality both ways, at 
either end of his proposition. 

But all that has happened is that, by his surreptitious 
substitution, he has insidiously transferred the tainted 
relativity of his predicates, one and many, to his sub- 
stantive God ; or, let us say, the One Eeality. And when 
he goes on to argue that unity is unthinkable and non- 
existent without multiplicity, the two-edged nature of the 
argument reveals itself at once. Multiplicity is unthink- 
able and non-existent without unity. Neither side has the 
advantage; but, this time, the pluralist doesn't get his 
multiplicity both ways. For unity, in the monist's sense 
of one all-embracing Reality, is certainly not the first num- 
ber in a numerical series. 

It is now pretty evident that both sides are dealing, not 
with the necessities of thought, but with the barest ab- 
stractions. 

But when the monist contends that Ms One is not the 
divisible, multipliable, numerical " one " of mere quan- 
tity, but the Absolute One of self-contained and self- 
conditioned Being, the pragmatist turns on him and ex- 
poses the relative nature of his Absolute. If all things 
are one in the Absolute, then the Absolute, being all things, 
is not one but many. If the relative is not the Absolute, 
then the Absolute is not all things. Again, if the Abso- 
lute is not all things it is not the Absolute ; because it will 
then stand in relation both to the things it is not and to 



132 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

the things it is, and thus cease to be Absolute. It holds 
its thin prestige of Godhead or of cosmic unity at the cost 
of all god-like or cosmic attributes ; for the moment it be- 
gins, either to be anything or to do anything, it needs 
must " enter into relations." At every turn the Abso- 
lute of the monist must face that awful and incredible 
" self-diremption," which makes of it a sort of Judas Is- 
cariot in the potter's field of Philosophy, a Judas without 
any bowels. The sad process of the Absolute is the sui- 
cide of the eternal through time. 

The Absolute, in short, is the most flagrant instance of 
an empty, impotent, adjectival abstraction — and a nega- 
tive abstraction at that — posing as a cosmos or God. 

And Being is in no better case. What is Being, any- 
how, but an abstraction of the copula " is," by which 
predicates are hooked on to their substantives ? It is hard 
indeed to see wherein either is holier, or nobler, or more 
convincing than any dual or any plural principle. The 
pragmatic pluralist can at least show that his plurality is 
concrete, that it is something, and that it is " given." 

It must be owned that this form of the pragmatic 
pluralisms attack sounds very formidable. All the same 
I think the monist' s monotonous answer meets it. The 
driving point of the pluralisms wedge is the assumption 
that the relativity which is at the bottom of all the di- 
lemmas, and which holds good of the world of appearances, 
holds equally good of the world of Reality; and that, 
while you may and indeed must have dilemmas in the 
sub-metaphysical world, they should be strictly excluded 
from your metaphysics. And the Absolutist's answer is: 
Quite so. The sub-metaphysical world is the very birth- 
place and the home of dilemmas, which is precisely the 
reason why I am driven to assume a better and a safer 
one. And to the pragmatist's sinister assurances that his 
metaphysical world is not safer, that it is not really half 
so safe, his reply is that the pragmatist wilfully ignores 



PRAGMATISM AND HUMANISM 133 

his point, and for purely pragmatic reasons. His point, 
which he reiterates with sickening persistency, is that what 
appears as a dilemma in the sub-metaphysical world is 
not a dilemma in the metaphysical one; doubt of appear- 
ances here is the very foundation of certainty there, and 
denial of unreality is its crown. 

But the good pragmatist will have none of this. It 
doesn't matter what you happen to be denying, denial is 
bad Pragmatism. 

"Du bist der Geist der stets verneint." 

He is desperately afraid of any hand being laid on the 
actualities he loves. Mr. Schiller protests against Mr. 
Bradley's " conclusion that everything which is ordinarily 
esteemed real, anything which any one can know or care 
about, is pervaded with unreality, is i mere appearance ' 
in a greater or less degree of degradation." He finds 
that " this antithesis has become to me a considerable 
nuisance, and also, it must be confessed, a bit of a bore." 
In the heat of Pragmatism he forgets that it was his 
Mephistopheles who tempted Faust to say to the fleeting 
moment, 

"Verweile doch, du bist so schon," 

and that the soul's perdition lies in confusing the passing 
loveliness with the Eternal and the First Pair. 

But, after all, what has Mr. Bradley done? He has 
never, so far as I know, said a word about " degradation," 
or denied that an appearance may be a very noble and beau- 
tiful and even useful thing. He has said nothing to 
destroy pragmatic " values." The pragmatist is annoyed 
with the antithesis, which seems to him to exalt Absolute 
Reality at the expense of appearances; though he knows 
perfectly well that, since appearances are " there," since 
they have contrived somehow to get in first, they are not a 
bit the poorer for the metaphysical excesses of Mr. Brad- 



134 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

ley's Absolute. Yet the pragmatist pays homage to that 
principle in his heart when he ascribes absolute reality to 
the things he knows and cares about. 

And under all his Pragmatism lies the monstrous as- 
sumption that the honest man's knowing and caring are 
the measure of all the knowledge and all the passion in the 
universe. Of Mr. Bradley's Absolute he says, pragmati- 
cally and humanistically : " If It be not fair for me, what 
care I how fair It be ? " 

Now in the first copy of Appearance and Reality 
that came into my hands, fifteen years ago, I found that 
the owner had written on the fly-leaf these words of Saint 
Augustine : " Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our 
hearts are restless till they rest in Thee." So that some- 
body seems to have cared about Mr. Bradley's Absolute. 

I do not know anything about the state of Mr. Bradley's 
affections, or whether he has more or less " heart " than a 
pragmatist ; I am quite sure he has more imagination. He 
would probably find it no end of a nuisance and a bore if 
all the nice, useful things the pragmatist knows and cares 
about turned out to be " absolutely real." 

Now, in the first copy of Appearance and Reality 
pragmatic. Assume, as he does, that Man is not the meas- 
ure of all things, but only of some things, and that even 
those things are not as they appear to him, and you will 
not worry about dilemmas. In a world of appearances a 
few dilemmas more or less will not very greatly matter. 
But assume, as the pragmatist does, that things are as they 
appear, and a dilemma becomes a very serious affair in- 
deed. Assume an ultimate Dualism or Pluralism; then, 
since this is the only world that Pragmatism allows us to 
know and care about, the only world it allows us to assume, 
there is no hope of a solution in the a highest synthesis " 
of another. The pluralistic pragmatist abandons the hope 
of any highest synthesis, and is happy ; because his genius, 
his Will-to-believe, inclines him towards Humanism. The 



PRAGMATISM AND HUMANISM 135 

absolutist claims that the perfection of his principle is its 
capacity to swallow all dilemmas. It is what it is there 
for. 

Observe that there is an implicit charge of arrogance in 
all that the pragmatist says about the absolutist. As if 
the absolutist had not made the Great Surrender, and as if 
it were he who had made human thought and human emo- 
tion^ and human conduct and morality, " as they stand," 
binding on the transcendent and everlasting Reality ; as if 
he had not stripped himself bare for his adventure into 
the " untrodden country." It is an adventure on which he 
has staked his all. 

This recklessness of his is precisely what the pragma- 
tist has against him. It is, you see, a question of " values." 
Either your relations with the Unseen are good business, 
or they are nothing. The pragmatist feels that the abso- 
lutist is not getting back his money's worth. He is buy- 
ing in the dearest market and selling in the cheapest. 
What is worse, he is sending good money after bad. In- 
stead of driving a profitable bargain with Reality, as any 
sensible man would, he is plunging. And Pragmatism 
abhors the plunger. The Absolute, in pragmatic language, 
" does not pay." How can a " pitiable abstraction," a 
" mutilated shred," even of " human " nature, be made to 
pay? 

Now there are several ways in which the absolutist may 
meet this common-sense attitude. He may say that it is 
not a question of values, but of truth or falsehood, of sheer 
logical compulsion or the reverse, and that logic drives him 
to the assumption of the Absolute. He may say that, 
whether the pragmatist likes it or not, the conception of the 
Absolute is not a mutilated shred of human experience, but 
a necessity of thought. It is not to be accounted for by 
any description of the way in which the human psyche 
arrives at conception in the course of its evolution. It is 
not obtained by picking human experience to pieces. So 



136 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

far as it is " obtained " at all, it is obtained by testing all 
the " ultimate " principles of empiricism and finding them 
wanting. And they are found wanting precisely because 
they are — not absolute. 

This, his opponent says triumphantly, is making human 
thought the measure with a vengeance. You see, you can- 
not get away from Humanism after all. 

It is nothing of the kind, the absolutist retorts. You 
are simply quibbling. My principle is expressly stated as 
transcending human thought, in so far as thought is human, 
yours is not. It is presupposed in human experience, but 
— unless we are agreed to include the Beatific Vision as 
part of human experience — it is not found there. 

He may also say that the Absolute is under no obligation 
to pay him, and that he is not looking for payment. Or, if 
he takes the line that he has faith in the Absolute, and be- 
lieves that it will pay him in the long run, I don't see what 
the pragmatist is to do about it. He is pledged to the 
principle of the Will-to-believe, and the absolutist's Will-to- 
believe is as good as his. 

In any case, it is the pragmatist who begs the question 
when he says that the Absolute is an abstraction. So it 
is, from his point of view. When you have pinned your 
whole faith to the plump reality of a pluralistic universe, 
strictly conditioned, the Absolute must needs be the 
emptiest of abstractions. But even an uncompromising ab- 
solutist like Mr. Bradley would claim that his principle is 
the most concrete of all concrete things, since, on the theory, 
it has swallowed up the whole Pluralistic Universe of the 
pragmatist, and is ready to swallow as many more as fast 
as the pragmatist produces them. 

For his is not the frivolous contention that his Absolute 
has merely the largest swallow. As M. Bergson distin- 
guishes between Pure Time and spurious, popular clock- 
time, he distinguishes between the true Absolute, which is 
the Self-conditioned, and the spurious, popular Absolute, 



PRAGMATISM AND HUMANISM 137 

the Unconditioned tout court, which he grants yon is noth- 
ing better than a negation, and liable to be bowled over by 
the first robust " condition " that comes its way. He dis- 
tinguishes between the true Infinite, which includes the 
finite, whose image is the circle, and the spurious Infinite 
which is the finite all over again, the infinitely divisible, 
the process ad infinitum, whose image is the line. There 
is no end to the dilemmas of the Infinite if you insist on 
tainting it with the unrealities of space and time. If you 
taunt the absolutist with his everlasting negations, he can 
retort that the negation of a negation is not a negation, and 
that it is up to you to prove the reality of things, " as they 
stand," since you care so much about their status. 

There is one metaphysical situation, and only one, which 
would give rise to the dilemma which the pragmatist urges 
against him. He will agree that if the situation were such 
that his absolute Reality were relative to another absolute 
Reality, the two absolutes would then be relative, and in 
their mutual relativity would kill each other. Which is 
his reason for contending that there are not two absolute 
Realities or many absolute Realities, but one Absolute 
Reality. 

But as for his Absolute " entering into relations," like 
an Honest Man entertaining a business proposition, he 
denies that it does anything of the kind. It could only 
enter into relations if it were one term of the relation 
only; but it is both terms, and the relation; for, on the 
theory, it is all that is. Its function, as Absolute, is to 
maintain itself and manifest itself through things in rela- 
tion, and, as One, to maintain and manifest itself in multi- 
plicity. If you appeal to the Law of Contradiction, and 
protest that two contradictory propositions cannot be up- 
held seriously by any sane mind, he can point trium- 
phantly to the fact that they can be, and are, united, both 
in conception and in actuality. What God hath joined, 
let no pragmatist put asunder. 



138 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

In short, the pragmatic-pluralist finds multiplicity every- 
where he goes and unity nowhere apart from it ; while the 
absolute monist has to go no farther than his own conscious- 
ness to find the unity which is always, so to speak, top 
dog. And there would not be a pin to choose between them 
if the absolutist did not mean rather more than he actually 
commits himself to saying, and if the pragmatist had not 
a sharper appetite for unity than he cares to own to. 

For the student of metaphysics there may be something 
nobly serious in this desperate contention, conducted on 
one side with scorn and derision, and on the other with im- 
perturbable aplomb. But, to the student of literature, 
born without any metaphysical prejudices, it looks as if 
each side were criticising the other with the crudest liter- 
alism, a literalism which he would be ashamed to bring to 
the interpretation of a classic. 

To him it seems that, under the interminable webs of 
reasoning the absolutist wraps his meaning up in, his mean- 
ing is simplicity and clarity itself. He is trying to say 
that Spirit is absolute, a law unto itself from beginning 
to end of the world-process (if it has a beginning and an 
end). The whole performance, as he sees it, is neither 
one-sidedly psychic nor one-sidedly physical, but is one 
spiritual act. He may think that he arrives at this con- 
clusion by a subtle dialectic, but he really jumps to it by 
that spiritual recognition we call analogy. Jumping from 
what goes on in his own self, he knows of no elan vital to 
compare with the elan vital of spiritual energy. For, 
raise either psychic energy or physical energy to their 
highest pitch of intensity, and you get Spirit ; you get some- 
thing that, either way, is immaterial. Whether this is 
what the absolutist really means, to the student of litera- 
ture, who has his business among the high intensities of art, 
this is what he ought to mean. And so far as both Human- 



PKAGMATISM AND HUMANISM 139 

ism and Vitalism admit this, Humanism and Vitalism are 
good enough for him. 

And the absolutist is too densely literal if he cannot see 
that the pragmatist's plural principles are every bit as 
spiritual as his one ; with, of course, his private reservation 
that, so far as they are spiritual, they are one. The rest 
is an absurd juggling with terms of arithmetic which, on 
either theory, do not apply. 

In short, the unprejudiced student of literature cannot 
for the life of him see what the two are worrying about, and 
why they should not come to some arrangement. Pragma- 
tism, if you fancy it, for the affairs of life, and Monism in 
its proper place. 

But we renounced this light-hearted attitude in the be- 
ginning when we decided for the rigour of the game. We 
are now committed to the metaphysical adventure, and must 
see it through. 

There is one more consideration which may bring a 
strange and unexpected food to the appetite for unity. 

The pragmatist has another and a stronger line of argu- 
ment, the moral line. 

He says the blatant Pantheism of the monist lands him 
in moral catastrophe. If his One, his Absolute, his God, 
is all things, He is evil as well as good. The pragmatist 
cannot face the awful consequences of what is to him an 
immoral God. If God's All-mightiness is incompatible 
with his Goodness, then for God's sake give up the All- 
mightiness and let us, at any rate, have moral peace. Be- 
cause man hates evil and shrinks from pain, there must he 
a Dual principle ; there must be Another, the scapegoat of 
a God not quite almighty, upon whom all the evil in the 
world may be fastened. Or there must be Others, a host 
of Evil Ones, abominable spirits that have existed in their 
abomination, if not from all eternity, then from incon- 



140 A DEFENCE OE IDEALISM 

ceivable time. If you ask how and why abominations 
should spring up spontaneously in the universe, the prag- 
matic humanist cannot enlighten you. He can only point 
to the existence of evil in the world as it is and has been 
since man knew it or since it knew man. We can only 
ignore it, Mr. William James says, by " taking a moral 
holiday." We can only meet it, Mr. Schiller says, by this 
assumption of the incompetent God. The Infinite and 
the Absolute are up against man's morality and his dis- 
like of suffering, and they must go. God is only infinite in 
His good intentions, which presumably pave the hell of the 
Evil One. God, though infinitely well-meaning, is power- 
less to prevent this Evil One or those abominable spirits. 
But better, thrice better, that he should be powerless than 
that he should be immoral ; for he is not so powerless that 
he cannot struggle. The pragmatist is happy in that he 
can point to an actual state of struggle in the cosmic order. 
Given a Good Principle, struggling with an Evil One, there 
is always a chance that he may overcome him in the end ; 
that evil may be swallowed up in good. 

Really, this is not an unfair statement of the pragmatic 
humanist's problem and his heroic position. But, lest I 
should be suspected of loading the dice in favour of my 
monist, I will let Mr. Schiller state it in his own words. 

(Mr. Schiller rejects Dualism, although it "seemed able 
to preserve the all-important distinction between good and 
evil, for which Monism left no room." Dualism is " vir- 
tually disposed of with rejection of the ultimate difference 
of Matter and Spirit.") 

" The real battle has to be fought out between the champions 
of the One and of the Many, between Monism and Pluralism. 
And, contrary to the opinions of most previous philosophers, we 
are inclined to hold that the Many is a far more important prin- 
ciple than the One, and that Pluralism, consistently inter- 
preted and properly explained, is the only possible answer to 
the ultimate question of ontology." (Biddies of the Sphinx, 
pp. 350, 351.) ' 



PKAGMATISM AND HUMANISM 141 

" The finiteness of God depends on the very attributes that 
make him really God, on His personality, on His being, like all 
real beings, an individual existence. God is one among the 
Many, their supreme ruler and aim, and not the One under- 
lying the Many. The latter theory makes the Many inexplica- 
ble and the One indifferent. God, therefore, must not be iden- 
tified with Nature. For if by Nature we mean the All of 
things, then Nature is the possibility of the interaction of the 
ultimate existences, and of these God is one. And the exist- 
ence of these ultimate existences explains also why God can be 
finite; He is limited by the co-existence of other individuals. 
And from His relations to these other existences, which we have 
called spirits (chap. ix. § 31) arise all the features of our world 
which were so insoluble a problem to Monism — its Becoming, 
its process, and its Evil." Ibid. p. 361.) 

". . . though Matter, being nothing in itself, cannot be the 
principle of Evil, and is not in itself evil, it is yet character- 
istic of an essentially imperfect order of things: it is, as it 
were, the outward indication and visible reflection of Evil. 
For Evil is, like all things, ultimately psychical, and what is 
evil about Matter is the condition of the spirits which require 
the restraint of Matter ... if evil, i.e., inharmonious spirits 
were permitted the full realization of their conscious powers, 
they would be able to thwart and delay, if not to prevent the 
attainment of the divine purpose of the world process . . . the 
lower existences, i.e., the less harmonized, have their conscious- 
ness limited and repressed by material organization, in order 
that their power for evil may be practically neutralized, and 
that in the impotence of their stupidity they may have little 
influence on the course of events." (Ibid. chap, ix, § 31, p. 303.) 

Observe, in passing, that, though Matter is " character- 
istic of an essentially imperfect order of things," though it 
is " the outward indication and visible reflection of Evil," 
it is the weapon in the hands of the ferociously good God 
(apparently the only weapon that he has). It is " the 
check upon consciousness " : a sort of poison gas which the 
Good God sends into the enemy's lines, to smother and 
stupefy and reduce to impotence the Evil Ones. 

" We start with a number of spiritual beings struggling 
against and opposing the Divine Power, which may overpower, 



142 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

but cannot destroy them. What is to be done? To leave them 
in the full possession of their powers and intelligence would be 
to give them the power to do evil, to reduce the spiritual order 
to a chaotic play of wild antagonisms." 

(For, after all the fuss the humanist has kicked up about 
the existence of Evil, it is u practically neutralized " ! 
To return to the Evil Ones: 

" To destroy them is impossible. But it is possible to do the 
next best thing, viz., to reduce their consciousness to the verge 
of non-existence. In such a state of torpor it would be pos- 
sible to induce them to give an all but unconscious assent to 
the laws of the cosmos, and gradually to accustom them to the 
order which the divine wisdom had seen to be the best. . . ." 
(Ibid. p. 362.) 

That is the Humanist's solution: a moral God, one 
against many, armed with lumps of Matter. He cannot 
destroy his enemies (besides, it would be immoral to de- 
stroy them) but he can knock them senseless. So, you see, 
he hasn't done so badly after all. 

" For to impress on fools and beasts even a dim sense of the 
rationality of the scheme of things, is a task more difficult by 
far than to prevail over the dissent of superhuman intelli- 
gences." 

I do not know why it should be more difficult, except 
that Mr. Schiller says it is, and he ought to know about his 
own God. Anyhow, these are the triumphs of the Good 
God. The rationality of the cosmos is proved by a knock- 
you-down argument which prevails with fools and beasts ! 

Well, well, the problem of Evil is a very hard one. But 
this particular solution overlooks two rather glaring facts : 
the fact that stupidity causes most of the moral evil that 
we suffer from; so that by deliberately causing stupidity 
the good God becomes a cause of evil. There is really no 
sense in which stupidity can be made out to be a good 
thing. The other fact is the behaviour of Matter, which is 



PEAGMATISM AND HUMANISM 143 

the cause of most of the physical pain we suffer. On Mr. 
Schiller's theory, Matter at any rate seems to be under the 
control of the Good God — why then, if he is all that the 
humanist would like him to be, does he allow Matter to 
get so intolerably out of hand ? You would have thought, 
that (even if the Evil Ones can dispose of war material, 
and have all the best designs for armaments) He might 
have put down, for instance, earthquakes. An earth- 
quake, after all, is not an ultimate spiritual existence. 
But no, his efficiency is limited in that direction, too. 

Oddly enough, it is this well-meaning but incompetent 
God of Humanism that has caught the fancy of Mr. H. G. 
Wells. Mr. Wells has given to the conception a poetry and 
a dignity which is not its own, but he has not succeeded in 
disguising either its inherent absurdity or the moral hys- 
teria to which it owes its being. 

" Mr. Britling's " son has been killed in the Great War, 
and " Mr. Britling " — type of all Britishers and honest 
men — realizes, contrary to his usual way of thinking, that 
there is a God. But not a God who " lets these things 
happen." A God, amiable and inefficient, who can't, for 
the life of him, help them happening. 

" Letty," who has lost her " Teddy," insists that he must 
let them happen. " Or why do they happen % " 

Mr. Wells, like Mr. Schiller, tells us why. 

" ' No,' said Mr. Britling ; ' it is the theologians who must 
answer that. They have been extravagant about God. They 
have had silly absolute ideas — that he is all-powerful. That 
he's omni-everything. But the common sense of men knows 
better. Every real religions thought denies it. After all, the 
real God of the Christians is Christ, not God Almighty; a poor 
mocked and wonnded God nailed on a cross of matter. ... 
Some day he will triumph. . . . But it is not fair to say that 
he causes all things now. It is not fair to make out a case 
against him. You have been misled. It is a theologian's folly. 
God is not absolute; God is finite. ... A finite God who 
struggles in his great and comprehensive way as we struggle in 



144 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

our weak and silly way — Who is with us — that is the 
essence of all real religion. ... I agree with you so — Why! 
if I thought there was an omnipotent God who looked down on 
battles and deaths and all the waste and horror of this war — 
able to prevent these things — doing them to amuse himself — 
I would spit in his empty face. . . .' " (Mr. Britling Sees It 
Through, p. 397.) 

If Mr. Britling had left it " at that " we might have 
been sorry for him. But when the flood of hysteria sub- 
sides, he blunders up against the Open Secret. 

" ' God is within Nature and necessity. Necessity is a thing 
beyond God — beyond good and ill, beyond space and time, a 
mystery, everlastingly impenetrable. God is nearer than that. 
Necessity is the outermost thing, but God is the innermost 
thing. Closer is he than breathing and nearer than hands and 
feet. He is the Other Thing than this world. Greater than 
Nature or Necessity, for he is a spirit and they are blind, but 
not controlling them. . . . Not yet. . . .' " (Ibid. loc. cit.) 

" Necessity is the outermost thing, but God is the inner- 
most thing." When Mr. Wells comes to see that Necessity 
is an illusion, and that space and time and our good and 
ill, are not absolute and ultimate realities, and that the 
" innermost thing " is the Real Thing, he will be at the end 
of his Research Magnificent. Meanwhile, he has shown 
his wisdom in not attempting any picture of the actual 
procedure of the good and inefficient God in his duel with 
Evil. 

You cannot very well state the humanist's position in any 
terms that will not make manifest the absolutist's advan- 
tage; but I think Mr. Schiller's own statement shows it, 
if anything, better than mine. 

The monist's reply to this innocent Manicheism is that 
it is the pragmatic humanist and not he who is deifying 
Evil, since he has endowed it with ultimate reality. He 
will suggest that an Absolute that is both good and evil 
(since the pragmatist will have it so), is not evil, even for 



PKAGMATISM AND HUMANISM 145 

one fleeting moment of his infinite existence ; and that, for 
that matter, he is just as capable, in fact ten times more 
capable, of bringing good out of evil than a God, desper- 
ately moral, but of imperfect power; since the Absolute 
as immanent is the world-process, and as transcendent is 
also everything that may be left over and above it ; that, if 
there is to be a final victory, if the Evil Principle, or Evil 
Principles, are ultimately to be swallowed up in the Good, 
you have an ultimate unity; that, with his struggles and 
his victories and his ultimates and finals, the humanist is 
giving a metaphysical reality to time that time cannot be 
made to bear ; and that, since there is to be a final swallow- 
ing, and a final unity, he might just as well have had it first 
as last. 

Here, I think, it must be admitted, the absolutist scores. 
The pragmatist has betrayed his secret appetite for unity. 
His evil must be swallowed up in good. If the pragmatist 
is not playing with words, if there is to be a real swallow- 
ing and a real assimilation, the two must be potentially 
one. It does not matter whether his resulting unity be a 
moral unity, or a metaphysical unity; unity it is, and 
union and At-one-ment; and really he might as well have 
had it first as last. 

The absolutist does not take a " moral holiday." He 
does not deny, and he does not ignore, the serious and be- 
wildering difficulty of the problem of evil. It is a difficulty 
from any point of view. But I cannot see that it bears 
with a more awful weight on the theory of an immanent 
and transcendent God in whose reality evil, as such, has 
no meaning that we can recognize, than on these two alter- 
native theories of a Dual Principle or of Plural Principles. 
Humanism either exalts Evil, in all the prestige of an in- 
dependent metaphysical reality, or it poisons life at its 
source by fixing it in matter, which should be, of all things, 
innocent if life is to be kept holy. Or if it does not fix it 
there, it fixes it in the human will, which is even worse, 



146 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

besides not being altogether true. The one theory that it 
does crush, you would think, should be the old theory of the 
absconding deity, God the Creator, who is above all things, 
Blessed for ever ; who sits outside creation, with no part or 
lot in its conflict or its suffering. And yet it does not crush 
it utterly. Incompetent as he is, the humanist God, the 
God of the cosmic arena, has a certain trait in common 
with the God who sits above it. a Resistance," we are 
told, the resistance of matter/ the resistance of the hard, 
recalcitrant Evil Ones, is " necessary " to the putting 
forth of his power, to the heroic spectacle of his prowess. 
Who designed this accordance of evil with the requirements 
of the gladiatorial God ? Not the Evil Ones, you may be 
very sure. Suspicion falls upon the gladiator. He has 
engineered the existence of Evil to gratify his taste for 
combat and for personal display. 

But the immanent Spirit of the absolutist truly bears 
his part, he truly labours and suffers, in so far as he is 
all Nature and all mankind. He has literally shirked 
nothing. Yon Hartmann's one merit as a thinker was that 
he saw that God the Creator is the intolerable God. If he 
had had a little more metaphysical vision, and a little less 
moral cowardice, he would not have called upon man to 
save God, to deliver the Absolute, by bringing the world- 
process as quickly as possible to an end. He would have 
called to him rather to save God by saving himself, by be- 
having as much like a spiritual being as possible. In no 
other way can he hasten the end of the world-process — the 
tendency of all spirits towards self-determination, after the 
likeness of the Absolute Spirit in whom they live and move 
and have their being. 

So that Pragmatism and Humanism, in spite of their 
closeness to life, and their admirable freedom from the 
bonds of system, have broken out into a dilemma almost as 
bad as any inherent in the systems. In the very act of 
whitewashing its deity so as to bring him up to the paro- 



PRAGMATISM AND HUMANISM 147 

chial standard of purity, Humanism has lapsed into the 
unity it repudiated. Horn one. Horn two, which is a 
moral point, is not quite so obvious ; but it will become so 
if the situation is examined. The Good God, being good, 
is opposed to the evil He did not cause but cannot help. 
He must, therefore, struggle against it that his goodness 
may be proved. If he refuses the heroic combat he is not 
a good God. If, having entered the arena, he does not 
come off conqueror he is not, he cannot be, so very good. 
If he conquers, the Evil One is not destroyed, but merged 
in Good ; and you have, not two principles, or many prin- 
ciples, but one principle. And this is moral Monism. 

The humanist, you see, is not quite so naif as the 
Semitic theologies that have produced him. Uncompro- 
mising in the face of his moral dilemma, he boldly throws 
over God's Almightiness so that his All-goodness may be 
kept intact. On no account must he be identified with the 
trivialities and absurdities and iniquities of existence. He 
should not, for instance, be held responsible for the pres- 
ence in our universe of " so many millions of fleas." 

Mr. Schiller seems to suggest that it is Mr. Bradley who 
should be responsible for the many millions. It does not 
occur to him that they might have been designed for the 
express purpose of demonstrating that man is not the sole 
end of the universe, and that humanist man is not the 
measure of all things, but that the humblest organism may 
have its point of view, and its right to a say in the matter 
of existence. 

Having relieved his principle of its worst embarrass- 
ments, the humanist has now got God almost, but not quite 
as moral as himself. But he has not avoided All-in- All- 
ness ; he has simply conceived it in the form of human 
morality. Human morality, evolved by processes of alter- 
nate conflict and readjustment from various instincts of 
desire and repugnance adapted to the social and physical 
conditions of the inhabitants of this planet, this precious 



148 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

morality of his is what he solemnly refers to transcendent 
Reality. And this, mind you, after jibbing at any identi- 
fication of deity with the absurder details of our daily 
life. 

And mark the dilemma that arises from an honest man's 
attempt to whitewash God. After all, he can only save his 
moral whitewash at the expense of his Pluralism, and his 
Pluralism at the expense of his whitewash. And, even 
then, he has not saved his Good God entirely from the sus- 
picion of complicity in Evil. The Good God challenges, 
provokes, demands resistance. He is no more All-good 
than he is All-powerful. 

There is another very serious objection that the abso- 
lutist might make. The pragmatist's helpless and unhappy 
God is not good at all, any more than he is all-powerful. 
For, on the pragmatist's theory, the good is the useful ; it 
is what pays. The good God, then, is the useful God, the 
paying God; and Evil is swallowed up in usefulness, in 
payment. So that Evil, also, is what pays in the long run. 

It would seem, after all, then, that unity, in some form 
or other, is a necessity of thought. If the appetite for it 
is frustrated in one place it will break out in another. It 
is implicit in the very dilemmas of the systems that have 
repudiated it. 

But, to be just to Pragmatism and Humanism, they have 
deserved well of philosophy in reminding it of things it is 
apt to forget ; little things, like Will and action and moral 
conduct, which Idealism really renders little or no account 
of. 

And I do not think either pragmatists or humanists claim 
to have established a metaphysic. Concerned as they are 
with the human will and with action, and with moral con- 
duct, they aim at something which they believe devoutly 
to be nobler and better and more useful — they conceive 
themselves to be much more profitably engaged in laying 



PEAGMATISM AND HUMANISM 149 

the ethical foundations of the Universe. They do not 
worry about the foundations of Ethics; they worry about 
the ethical behaviour of the Universe. Whatever the Uni- 
verse does or does not conform to, it must conform to 
human and pragmatic ideas of morality. 

But the Universe is nothing if not ironic. And in the 
fate of Pragmatism and Humanism there is a peculiar and 
a perfect irony. They have been taken at their word ; and, 
as they have insisted on putting conduct first, and Ethics 
first, or Ethics, if anything, a little after conduct, and on 
ignoring everything in the Universe that does not square 
with conduct, or account for conduct, or presuppose con- 
duct, that is not related to conduct, or referable in some 
way to conduct, they are left, in consequence of their vast 
repudiations, without any ethical ground for Ethics; and 
therefore without any ethical ground for conduct at all. 
" Thought-relations " are irrelevant to conduct, therefore 
" thought-relations " must go. Kelativity is fatal to ethical 
conduct, therefore relativity must go. The Infinite and 
the Absolute are indifferent to ethical conduct, therefore 
the Infinite and the Absolute must go. Monism will not 
account for ethical conduct. Monism is even incompatible 
with ethical conduct, therefore Monism must most em- 
phatically go. So that, though Pragmatic Humanism does 
not claim to have established a metaphysic, it does claim to 
have destroyed one, which is to be metaphysical with a 
vengeance. 

And it does not seem to have occurred to either Pragma- 
tism or Humanism that a dead metaphysic could revenge 
itself in its turn. It did not and it could not occur to them 
that in this clean sweep of non-moralities, Morality itself 
must go. The pragmatist's eyes are fixed on conduct and 
the useful, the paying results of conduct ; and the human- 
ist's eyes are fixed on the origins of conduct and the end of 
conduct, and neither have paused to ask themselves the one 
question that is vital and crucial for Ethics: Is there 



150 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

anything that is good in itself, apart from its results or its 
origin, or its end ? The logical outcome of Pragmatism is 
that the good is what pays ; the logical outcome of Human- 
ism, with its evolutionary Ethics, is that the good is the 
pleasant or the desirable or the beneficial. 

With all their air of brand-new modernity, neither 
Pragmatism nor Humanism have added anything to the 
Utilitarianism of the middle nineteenth century, nor to the 
Hedonism of the year 400 b. c. Pragmatism wears a 
Quaker's hat, and Humanism has vine-leaves in its hair. 
Their quest is not for Ultimate Eeality, but for steam- 
engines and motor cars and synthetic chemistry; or for 
Tango, if that is pleasant, desirable, and beneficial. 

But it is only fair to add that their dilemmas are of the 
unconscious kind, and that they have made no specious 
promises. They say : I find this Dualism or this Plural- 
ism, and I leave it at that. It does not make a tidy uni- 
verse, but I can't help it. It's not my job to tidy up the 
Universe. And I prefer things left like that with their 
ends hanging all loose; it is more picturesque, more like 
Nature and like real life. 



VI 
THE NEW KEALISM 



We have seen that, after heroic struggles, neither Pragma- 
tism nor Humanism succeeded in shaking itself wholly free 
of the abhorred unity. In their exclusive concern with 
conduct and morality both betray a strong subjective bias 
fatal to the pretensions of a philosophy that is out against 
subjectivism in all its forms. We have seen that their 
too great zeal for goodness and the ultimate triumph of 
goodness defeated its own end, and left them with a uni- 
verse on their hands in which Goodness had neither meta- 
physical sanction nor logical ground, and, so far from 
being a reality, is not even that which to every pragmatist 
and humanist is a miserable makeshift for reality — an 
idea. 

I had got so far when it was pointed out to me that to 
deal faithfully with those philosophies is to slay the slain, 
and that my time would be very much better employed in 
considering the New Realism, which has nothing in com- 
mon with them but its abhorrence of unity. It was also 
pointed out to me that the claims of the New Realism are 
so well founded that there is no likelihood or even possi- 
bility of Monism raising its head again, and that the mys- 
terious Snark, " ultimate reality," has disappeared from 
the universe. I gathered that, this time, there can be no 
more temporizing, no more fooling about with rela- 
tivity; no more fencing and dodging, and no more 
playing fast and loose with the law of contra- 

151 



152 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

diction; no more sheltering of reality behind appear- 
ances; no more conjuring with the unity of conscious- 
ness; in short, that all the little games of Monism are 
played out. It is a case of either swallowing the New 
Realism, or being swallowed, with no possible doubt as to 
the actual issue. 

There is nothing for it but to approach the monster with 
as bold a front as is possible for a devout monist inwardly 
quivering with fear. It must be confessed that he is in 
some danger. For the New Realism is before all things a 
mathematical method; and it cannot be said that every 
monist is as strong in mathematics as by the nature of his 
case he ought to be. Still, he will do himself no good by 
ignoring the gravity of his position. He has got to look 
he has cleared his mind of Kant, whether he spells it with 
a small c or a big K. 

Now he cannot look it squarely in the face until he has 
stripped himself of every prejudice that clings to him, 
until he has got rid of the traditions he has been born and 
bred in (for the monist is usually born, not made) ; until 
he has cleared his mind of Kant whether he spells it with a 
small c or a big K. 

He must, I think, acknowledge that his real, live, and 
formidable enemies are, not the Dualism of " Messrs. 
Dewey and Schiller," nor yet the Pluralism of Mr. Wil- 
liam James, but the Pluralism of Mr. Bertrand Russell, 
Mr. G. E. Moore, Mr. Alexander, and the new realists of 
the United States. 

At the same time, it would have argued a most unreason- 
able negligence to have ignored the brilliant and powerful 
work of Mr. James and Mr. Schiller. By their very 
brilliance and their power, and the grace of their appeal to 
the thought and feeling of the plain man, they are likely 
to hold their own, if not after the New Realism has been 
forgotten, at any rate long before it has begun to be re- 
membered by the plain man. The chances are that it is 



THE NEW EEALISM 153 

neither Pragmatism nor Humanism, but the New Realism 
that will succeed in establishing itself as the dominant 
philosophy of the twentieth century. Still, they pre- 
pared its way before it ; they anticipated it to some extent 
in their criticism of abstract intellectual Idealism, and in 
their insistence on those irreducible elements of will, feel- 
ing and action which abstract Idealism leaves out of its 
account. 

And the New Realism has not been grateful to the two 
pioneers. It comes triumphantly and relentlessly into its 
own, and you may say its first act of power is to give both 
of them the coup de grace where it finds them, loitering 
contentedly on the very road they had made smooth for it. 

Well, the plain man is not going to think the worse of 
Pragmatism for Mr. Bertrand Russell's attack on it, even 
if Pragmatism is not hereafter to be counted among 
serious philosophies, and if Humanism is in no better 
case. 

To what does the New Realism owe its deadly force ? 

Mainly, I think, if not entirely, to its method. Not to 
its newness, for it is not by any means so new as would 
appear from its claim to have revolutionized Philosophy, 
much as Copernicus revolutionized astronomy, by taking 
the sun as the centre of the solar system instead of the earth. 
Indeed, the New Realism has gone one better than Coperni- 
cus. It has decentralized Philosophy altogether. 

And it has done this by applying the method of Mr. 
Bertrand Russell's " atomistic logic " to the universe with- 
out and to the universe within; that is to say, to the sum 
total of experience. 

The first result of this searching and implacable analysis 
is to demonstrate that the two are by no means contermi- 
nous. On the contrary, you are led, step by step, through 
a series of unwary admissions, to the conclusion that there 
is no universe within ; but that the sum total of the 



154 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

within is, in a vigorous and undebatable sense, part (and 
a very small part at that) of the universe without; while 
of the universe without there is no sum total, but an infi- 
nite number of kinds or classes of existences and an in- 
finite number of existences within each class or kind. The 
extreme pluralistic conclusion follows wherever and when- 
ever the analytic method is applied. There is no escaping 
it, because, in the last resort, it rests upon a limited set of 
incontrovertible axioms of mathematical logic. There is 
no escaping the extreme realistic conclusion, because it also 
rests on an incontrovertible law of pure mathematics. All 
mathematics in their turn flow from a score of premisses 
of Symbolic or Formal Logic. 33 

This fact, that " all Mathematics is Symbolic Logic," 
Mr. Bertrand Kussell declares to be " one of the greatest 
discoveries of the age " 34 and he shows that it is impossible 
to exaggerate its importance to Philosophy and its influ- 
ence on the fate of Monism. 

" The Philosophy of Mathematics has been hitherto as con- 
troversial, obscure and unprogressive as the other branches of 
philosophy. Although it was generally agreed that mathe- 
matics is in some sense true, philosophers disputed as to what 
mathematical propositions really meant: although something 
was true no two people agreed as to what it was that was true, 
and if something was known, no one knew what it was that 
was known. So long, however, as this was doubtful it could 
hardly be said that any certain and exact knowledge was 
to be obtained in mathematics. We find, accordingly, that 
idealists have tended more and more to regard all mathematics 
as dealing with mere appearances, while empiricists have held 
everything mathematical to be approximation to some exact 
truth about which they had nothing to tell us." (Principia 
Mathematica, i, p. 4.) 

The strength of Idealism has hitherto lain in the poverty 
of Formal Logic, the impossibility of bringing the sacro- 
sanct deductions of mathematics into line with deductive 
logic as it then existed. Philosophers, when they looked 



THE NEW KEALISM 155 

for the cause of this mysterious divorce and contradiction 
between two orders of truth supposed equally incontro- 
vertible, so far from suspecting that the machinery of 
formal logic might be at fault, were apt to throw the entire 
blame on mathematics. Mathematics was accused of rely- 
ing on axioms which were so many unproved and unprov- 
able hypotheses. They might depend on an a priori 
intuition, or they might not; in either case their boasted 
logical certainty was an illusion. What was much worse, 
so far as pure mathematics could be said to be certain, 
they had no valid application to the world of experience, 
the world of space and time. 

All Idealisms, constructive or destructive, are based on 
the ultimate inability of mathematics to defend its own 
position. And it is claimed that with the reform of Sym- 
bolic Logic, the perfecting of the formal machinery, the 
bottom is knocked out of Idealism. 

Eor it follows that if all mathematics is symbolic logic, 
if " all the entities that occur in mathematics can be de- 
fined in terms of those that occur in the above twenty 
premisses," we have no longer got two orders of truth, but 
one order of truth. Pure mathematical truth will not be 
purer than any other ; it will not constitute a different, a 
higher, holier and more certain kind of truth. Any un- 
mathematical proposition that follows faithfully from the 
same laws of symbolic logic will be as certainly true, as 
high and holy as mathematical truth. 

And lest the monist should take heart and see in the 
Great Discovery a confirmation of his theory that all logic, 
that is to say, all thought, all truth, and therefore all ex- 
istence, is one, it should be broken to him at once that he 
is doomed to disappointment. 

This unity of supreme logical law is not a unity in 
which he can hope to recognize his own. It is a purely 
formal and provisional unity. So far from being any good 
to him, it is the thin end of the wedge by which his uni- 



156 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

verse is prised open, torn asunder and scattered to the infi- 
nite. This logic is not his logic. Instead of the twelve 
comfortable categories which he could wrap round his uni- 
verse like twelve woolly blankets, with the one vast eider- 
down of the Absolute on top, it gives him a plurality of 
logical indefinables, as hard as marbles, which hurt him 
in all his tender places; instead of the rhythmic and 
dynamic throb of the Triple Dialectic, with its rich, rolling 
song of unity in difference, it gives him vibrations as multi- 
tudinous, as discordant and irrelevant as the noises in a 
Futurist symphony. 

The New Realism is before all things a method, and a 
mathematical method. For, if there is to be any philos- 
ophy — any discussion as to the nature of the known, of 
knowing and the knower — at all, you must begin some- 
where; some axioms, or at any rate one axiom, must be 
accepted as certain, if there is not to be an infinite going 
back upon all propositions whatever. And the only cer- 
tain axioms are the axioms of pure mathematics ; that is to 
say, of Symbolic Logic. If we start anywhere, we must 
start with these. 

Starting with these, Pluralistic Realism stands or falls 
by mathematical logic. Its four vital theories are based 
on it : its theory of the mathematical infinite ; its theory of 
relations ; its theory of concepts or universals ; its theory of 
immediate perception, or of our knowledge of the ex- 
ternal world. It ought not to matter which of these we 
take first; for from each Pluralistic Realism will follow. 
Each leads us safely to its source in some incontrovertible 
law of mathematical logic. But, as it happens, we cannot 
consider the realistic theory of perception apart from the 
theory of the Infinite and the theory of relations, on both 
of which it depends. 

Say, then, that we begin with immediate experience, the 
perception of an object in space. 

(It js ; to say the least of it, extremely debatable 



THE NEW KEALISM 157 

whether the perception of an object in space is in any sense 
an immediate experience; but I must leave this crucial 
point for consideration later on. I want to state the posi- 
tion of Pluralistic Realism, as far as I understand it, with 
the greatest possible clearness and cogency, and for pres- 
ent purposes we may very well assume that the perception 
of an object in space is an immediate experience. We 
must start somewhere; and it is important for a proper 
understanding of the " new " position that we should start 
with an experience into which these three terms: " object," 
" space," and " perception," enter.) 

Whatever consciousness may be supposed to have done 
or not done originally with its sense data, there comes a 
point when those data are " referred " to an object per- 
ceived as in a space external to the perceiver. We know 
what Idealism makes of this, and with what plausibility. 
It makes of it something like this : — 

Let us grant that the only space in which objects are 
immediately known (otherwise perceived), is a "private 
space," 35 which the perceiver carries about with him, 
and that the shapes, sizes, lights and shades, and positions 
of objects in this space are not absolute, out relative to 
the position of the perceiver. Let us grant that the nature 
of pure or mathematical space has laws of its own and a 
nature of its own such that it is not and cannot be known 
in immediate perception. On these two points Monists 
and Pluralists are, I believe, agreed. Now, as long as 
it could be supposed that pure mathematical space was as 
much infected by illusion and relativity as any " private " 
space of yours or mine, and that it was therefore a perfect 
hotbed of contradictions and dilemmas (what applied to 
space applying equally to time) ; then, though the truth of 
all the intermediate laws of physics rested on the truth 
of the assumption that their space and time are " real " 
and contain no contradiction, Idealism was still within its 
rights in denying absolute and independent reality to 



158 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

space and time. The more contradictions and dilemmas 
Idealism could find in relations, above all in the relations 
of space and time, the better it was pleased. For, since 
there is nothing known that is not known as standing in 
relation to something or other (except the Absolute), it 
could then charge the whole multiplicity of outer and inner 
experience with unreality and set up its Absolute, which 
is One, as the only Keal. Physical science could not lift 
a finger to prevent this annihilation of its universe, as 
long as the pure mathematical laws, on which it rests, 
themselves involved the very worst contradictions and 
dilemmas. Its universe of space and time, matter and 
motion, was infected at its source. 

The most destructive of those dilemmas turned on the 
nature of the Infinite and its relation to the finite. It 
was argued that finite events, such as motion or any other 
change, simply could not happen because of the infinity 
they involved. And if they are perceived as happening, 
if they are, in fact, known to happen, that fact goes to 
prove that all our perceiving and all our knowledge is of 
appearances and not of realities, and that the only real ob- 
ject of a real knowledge is the Absolute, the motionless and 
unchanging One. 

This relativity on which Monism battens is found, not 
only in the changes and motions of things, but in things 
themselves. Their being is to be related. Take the 
simplest of static relations, the relation of the thing and 
its qualities. It seems obvious that, if there are qualities, 
they must be qualities of something. There must be some- 
thing that holds them together. (At least so it seems to 
the Idealistic Monist.) The thing and its qualities will 
then stand to each other as the two terms of a relation. 
But it is evident (the Monist thinks) that the relation 
must depend upon what the thing is, and what qualities it 
has, that is to say, upon the nature of its two terms. The 
relation itself will be related, and doubly related. 



THE NEW KEALISM 159 

We have, then, instead of the single chaste and simple 
relation that we started with, a relation of dependence hold- 
ing between the relation itself and each of its two terms; 
that is to say, the relation that we thought so innocent has 
itself given birth to two terms and a relation; and that 
relation, being likewise dependent on the nature of its 
terms, will be likewise related; and so on for ever and 
ever, the terms and the relations multiplying, like genera- 
tions, in geometrical proportion. You will find all this 
maddening behaviour of relations described in Mr. Brad- 
ley's Appearance and Reality, pages nineteen to thirty- 
four. 

We started with a thing and its qualities, and the rela- 
tion between them, and we have got an infinite regression. 
But, by the very fact that it possesses quality and that the 
qualities are possessed by it, the thing is finite, the qualities 
are finite, and the relation between them is finite. So 
that we have again the contradiction and dilemma of a 
finite set of terms and relations involving an infinite series 
of terms and relations. A contradiction and dilemma 
which can only be avoided by taking both term and rela- 
tion, the thing and its qualities, and whatever it is that 
makes them its qualities, as appearances and not as reali- 
ties. 

Apply the same argument to the supreme relations of 
subject and object, of the self and its consciousness, and 
the entire universe of the without and the within is re- 
vealed as an illusion and a contradiction. And once more 
our flight is to the Absolute as the only Beality. 

This conclusion is revolting to the intellectual con- 
science of men of science and to the common sense of the 
plain man, however much it may delight the Monist and 
the mystic to be thus driven into the bosom of his God. 

We have seen how Vitalism and Pragmatism have tried 
to escape it and wherein they have failed. It must, I 
think, be owned that the New Realism is more successful. 



160 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

Neither Vitalism nor Pragmatism had a logic and a 
method. Vitalism took its stand on immediate perception 
and the facts of life. It observed them, as the biologist or 
the psychologist observes them ; it found that neither what 
it called Realism nor what it called Idealism provided or 
accounted for the most important data of perception and 
the most vital of the facts of life. But it had no logic 
whereby to test the apparent contradictions and dilemmas 
of immediate perception; it attempted to solve them un- 
critically and by rule of thumb, trusting to the plain man's 
common sense to find no fault with its pronouncement: 
The problem of Life is solved by living, as the problem of 
walking solvitur ambulando: And although Mr. Wil- 
liam James has dealt very faithfully indeed with Abstract 
Idealism, his method is, on the whole, so akin to M. Berg- 
son's want of method that it consists mainly in an open 
appeal to the imagination and the common sense which 
Vitalism satisfies and Abstract Idealism does not. It 
is hard to resist Mr. James when he is quoting Fech- 
ner, almost as hard as it is to resist Fechner himself. 
Fechner appeals with fervour and without shame to the 
desire of God and the hope of immortality that still stirs 
the hearts of some of us outside the Universities of Cam- 
bridge and Harvard. But so long as there is left in this 
hospitable pluralistic universe a single stickler for the 
rigour of the game, one solitary professor whose heart 
remains impervious to the desire of God and the hope of 
immortality, the appeal of philosophies which have no 
Logic is urged in vain. 

For it should be remembered that this is not a question 
of who thinks closest to life, Mr. William James or Mr. 
Bertrand Russell, but of what guarantee we have that 
when we think our thinking is true. We cannot dash in 
and snatch at a highly complex, ready-made reality like 
Life and test our thinkings by their correspondence with 



THE NEW KEALISM 161 

it, even if we knew what life is and what thought is (which 
we are very far from knowing). For life, anyhow, is a 
highly specialized and subordinate part of the whole con- 
text of experience, which includes many more things than 
immediate perception can lay its hands on; and, as for 
thought, it may have no higher or more comprehensive place 
in the total hierarchy than life ; and philosophy cannot test 
thougnt by its correspondence with reality, when the reality 
of experience is the question before us to be solved. 

We owe it to Mr. Bertrand Eussell that Logic has been 
restored to its proper place as the organ of philosophy. 
We also owe it to him that Synthetic Logic has been suc- 
ceeded by Analytic Logic, if it is only for a time. The 
result is the most drastic criticism of preceding philos- 
ophies that has been known since the Critique of Pure 
Eeason smashed the systems that were before it. If the 
conclusions of Atomism hold good all along the line, it 
means the complete break-up, not only of Absolute Ideal- 
ism, but of all the great syntheses that ever ruled in Phi- 
losophy — with some revolts and revolutions — since Phi- 
losophy began. 

The synthetic systems were based, one and all, on criti- 
cism, more or less drastic, of the assumptions of immediate 
perception. Where the axioms of pure mathematics were 
held to be true they were also held to be inapplicable to the 
objects of immediate perception. Every attempt to recon- 
cile the two orders of assumption led to contradictions and 
dilemmas. The truth of the mathematical axioms them- 
selves was considered to be open to doubt. Though the 
most tremendous consequences flowed from them, there 
were no axioms more ultimate and more simple from which 
they themselves flowed. The validity of every generaliza- 
tion and every deduction of physical science hung on them. 
They hung unsupported in a world of their own. Mathe- 
matics had thus a peculiar and mysterious existence. No 



162 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

valid conclusion about the actual physical world could be 
reached without them ; yet the objects they defined had no 
existence in the actual physical world. 
That position remains unaltered. 

" As a branch of pure mathematics Geometry is strictly de- 
ductive; indifferent to the choice of its premisses and to the 
question whether there exist (in the strict sense) such entities 
as its premisses define." (Principia Mathematica, p. 372.) 

" Until the nineteenth century Geometry meant Euclidean 
Geometry, i.e., a certain system of propositions deduced from 
premisses which were supposed to describe the space in which 
we live." 

Then there were only two alternatives: 

" Either we must be certain of the truth of the premisses on 
their own account, or we must be able to show that no other 
set of premisses could give results consistent with experience." 

Kantian Idealism held out for the first alternative. 
Empiricism for the second. 

"But objections were raised to both. For the Kantian view 
it was necessary to maintain that all the axioms are self-evi- 
dent, a view which honest people found it hard to extend to the 
axiom of parallels. The second alternative . . . could only be 
tested by a greater mathematical ability than falls to the lot of 
most philosophers. Accordingly the test was wanting till Lo- 
batschewsky and Bolyai developed their non-Euclidean system. 
It was then proved with all the cogency of mathematical demon- 
stration that premisses other than Euclid's could give results 
empirically indistinguishable, within the limits of observation 
from those of the orthodox system. . . . Geometry has become 
(what it was formerly mistakenly called) a branch of pure 
mathematics, in which assertions are that such and such conse- 
quences follow from such and such premisses, not that entities 
such as the premisses describe really exist. That is to say, if 
Euclid's axioms be called A, and P be any proposition implied 
by A, then, in the Geometry which preceded Lobatschewsky, 
P itself would be asserted since A was asserted. But nowadays 
the geometer would only assert that A implies P, leaving A and 



THE NEW KEAL1SM 163 

P themselves doubtful. And he would have other sets of 
axioms A lf A 2 , . . . implying P t> P 2 , respectively, and the 
implications would belong to Geometry, but not A, or P, or 
any of the other actual axioms and propositions. Thus Ge- 
ometry no longer throws any direct light on the nature of actual 
space. . . . Dimensions, like order and continuity, are defined 
in purely abstract terms, without any reference to actual space." 
(Ibid. pp. 372-376.) 

Now the former state of mathematics suited the idealistic 
monist admirably, for it provided all the contradictions 
and dilemmas that he wanted. And he may have still 
drawn consolation from the assurance that Geometry is 
farther than ever from throwing " any direct light on the 
nature of actual space." But he has now to learn that " in- 
directly, the increased analysis and knowledge of possibili- 
ties resulting from modern Geometry has thrown immense 
light upon our actual space." 

If Pluralistic Realism can show, in spite of the high 
irrelevance of its mathematics, that there are definitions 
and there are axioms that hold good of the universe of 
space and time, matter and motion; if it can remove the 
contradictions and dilemmas which have been held to 
attach to the conceptions of space and time, matter and 
motion ; if it can show that the relations of finite and infi- 
nite contain no contradiction or dilemma, it can then go on 
to prove the continuity of space, the absolute reality of 
space and time, matter and motion, and of that curious col- 
lection of qualities we call an object in space. That is to 
say, it undertakes to show that the existence of the external 
world is independent of our consciousness and of any con- 
sciousness whatsoever. 

We shall see that those conclusions do not exhaust the 
possibilities of Pluralism. It claims to have established 
the external and independent reality of such things as con- 
cepts and " thought-relations," and the external and inde- 
pendent reality of sensations, which even philosophers 



164 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

hostile to Monism have for long enough surrendered to the 
inner world. 

It makes out its case, first, by dealing with all mathe- 
matical laws and all mathematical reasoning as laws and 
reasoning of Symbolic Logic ; secondly, by giving the enti- 
ties defined by pure mathematics — points, lines and 
planes — an external reality peculiar and apart ; thirdly, 
by cutting away the ground from under the monist's most 
cherished contradiction, the contradiction involved in the 
very idea of mathematical space. As long as you were 
compelled to think of pure space as a mysterious con- 
tinuity made up of discrete elements either infinitely 
divisible, or indivisible and infinite in number, the idealist 
was within his rights in denying the reality of space and 
time, and of matter and motion and everything else that 
depends on space and time. 

The New Eealism admits, I think, that he was within 
his rights. Things cannot move, that is to say, cannot 
change their positions, in an unreal space, nor real events 
happen in an unreal time, nor real things be tied together 
by unreal relations, nor real parts be contained in unreal 
wholes. 

So the first thing that Mr. Bertrand Eussell shows is that 
the laws of pure mathematics are the laws of Symbolic 
Logic. They have no superior cogency, but they have all 
the cogency that Formal Logic can confer on them, and 
there arise no contradictions or dilemmas in them any- 
where. 

This could not be shown as long as the axioms of mathe- 
matics can be held debatable; and they can be held de- 
batable as long as finite and infinite are affected by each 
other's behaviour; and finite and infinite could be very 
seriously affected by each other's behaviour as long as pure 
mathematics dealt with quantity and magnitude. But 
pure mathematics no longer deals with quantities or magni- 
tudes, but with pure numbers. Pure numbers are re- 



THE NEW KEALISM 165 

duced to " classes " or terms, the simplest elements of 
purely logical formulae; they can therefore be treated like 
any other terms in purely logical propositions. 

We have seen that the mutual compromising of finite by 
infinite and of infinite by finite is the root of the contradic- 
tion by which Idealism stands. But their differences have 
been adjusted for ever, we are told, since, some time in the 
'eighties, George Cantor, the mathematician, made a cer- 
tain interesting discovery as to the nature of the Infinite. 
He found, and proved, that to or from an infinite series any 
number, even an infinite number, can be added or taken 
away without either increasing or diminishing the series. 
That is to say, finite and infinite are not affected by each 
other's vagaries. They neither negate nor limit nor do 
they define each other. 

Mr. Bertrand Russell contends that this discovery has 
made secure the whole ground of mathematical philosophy, 
and with it all the foundations of applied mathematics, and 
with them all the laws of physical science that depend on 
the laws of space ; and with these, again, the ground of the 
reality of the external world is made secure. 

For the reality of motion depends on the continuity of 
space, and the reality of change on the continuity of time. 
Before Cantor's discovery it could be argued that change 
and therefore motion, which is change of position, were rela- 
tive and unreal ; that real motion could not take place, for 
the simple reason that there was no place for it to take, 
and that no real event could happen in time because there 
never was a quiet, steady instant for it to happen in. As 
long as space and time were held to be discontinuous, to 
consist in a finite or infinite number of separable points or 
instants, these dilemmas, so distressing to Realism, fol- 
lowed. For progress of bodies and succession of events 
will always be from one point to the next beyond it, and 
from one instant to the next beyond. Always, between 
points, the body said to be occupying space will be out of 



166 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

space, and, between instants, events said to be occurring in 
time will be out of time. M. Bergson does not cause these 
dilemmas to disappear by calling space the net that intellect 
spreads out under matter to catch it as it tumbles, and by 
using time to stuff the gaps in space. For there is nothing 
to stuff time's gaps with, except duree which is not time. 
There is no space and no time that can cover the awful, the 
unthinkable jump from next to next. 

Therefore, in Zeno's problem, Achilles never can over- 
take the tortoise ; because, however fast he runs, he can do 
no more than jump from next point to next point; and 
the tortoise, however slow he is, can do no less. Neither 
of them can skip a point, so that Achilles can't settle it by 
jumping over either the tortoise or the ground that he has 
travelled. Swiftness and slowness are irrelevant to the 
problem. Time, which is all important to it, suffers from 
the same discontinuity as space; from instant to instant 
is on all fours with from point to point. 

Into this dreadful gulf between point and point, instant 
and instant, the modern mathematician shovels in — the 
Infinite. 

Continuity, for the modern mathematician, is not an 
affair of infinitesimals, but of infinitely divisibles. More 
than all, it is an affair of order in a series. From Cantor's 
discovery it follows that there never is a next point, a next 
instant, a next number ; there never is any nextness at all. 
The next point, the next instant, the next number, are 
finites. And as the Infinite is neither increased nor di- 
minished, nor limited, nor in any way affected by any be- 
haviour of the finites, it follows that, start at any finite 
point, or instant, you will, between it and the next point, 
the next instant, there will be an infinite number of 
points and instants, and between any two numbers an in- 
finite number again, and so on to infinity, the gaps filling 
up before your eyes. 

You will find the entire proof set forth in the chapters 



THE NEW REALISM 167 

on Infinity and Continuity in the Principia Mathematica. 
Meanwhile Mr. Russell simplifies the problem by an illus- 
tration. 

" . . Let us imagine a tiny speck of light moving along a 
scale. What do we mean by saying that the motion is con- 
tinuous? ... If we consider any two positions of the speck 
occupied at any two instants, there will be other intermediate 
positions occupied at intermediate instants. However near to- 
gether we take the positions, the specks will not jump suddenly 
from the one to the other, but will pass through an infinite 
number of other positions on the way. Every distance, however 
small, is traversed by passing through all the infinite series of 
positions between the two ends of the distance." (Our Knowl- 
edge of the External World, pp. 133-134.) 

It is obvious that this feat would be impossible if time 
could not be treated in the same way. 

So there is no nextness anywhere. And if there is no 
nextness there is continuity. And if mathematical space 
and time are continuous, then all spaces and all times are 
continuous ; and if continuous then real. This conclusion, 
which is by no means self-evident, is the result of further 
logical constructions and correlations. What holds good 
of actual space will hold good of matter occupying space. 
What holds good of actual time will hold good of change 
and motion occupying time; change and motion will be 
absolute and real, and unselfcontradictory, in the sense 
that there is no state of change, and no state of motion. 
And since all material things are continuous, that is to say 
extended, extension, and with it the primary qualities of 
matter, will be absolute and real. 

There were, as we have seen, three outstanding objec- 
tions to the older Realisms : the alleged hypothetical char- 
acter of the axioms of pure mathematics ; the supposed fact 
that sense-perceptions are illusory; the supposed depend- 
ence of a relation on its terms. 

We have seen how the New Realism deals with the first. 



168 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

We shall see, later on, in another context, how it deals 
with the third. Its business, at the point where we are 
now, is with sense perception. 

When it comes to sense-perception it betrays a certain 
consciousness of difficulty. The appearances of an object 
in space do certainly differ according to the point of view 
and the optic apparatus of the perceiver. Its size, shape, 
colour, and relation to other objects in space vary with the 
position and distances of the perceiver. If a humorous 
creator had given to the lens of the eye the extravagant con- 
vexity and concavity of the little mirrors placed at the 
doors of Pierce's restaurants, the world of creatures would 
appear as a world of grotesques. 

But suppose that the New Eealism accepts as the stand- 
ard lens the lens of the normal human eye, appearances 
presented to the normal human eye will not rank as appear- 
ances, but as real objects normally perceived, and all varia- 
tions from the normal will be attributed to flaws in the 
mechanism of perception. 

(This question of the standard is crucial for the New 
Eealism. It raises difficulties which I will not dwell upon 
at present.) 

Still, the variations, which we may call objective varia- 
tions due to the perceiver' s objective changes of position, 
will remain. Also the fact that to one object of per- 
ception there will be a considerable, not to say an infinite 
number of perceivers, each bringing to the problem an in- 
dividual angle or point of view, which itself will change 
with each change in his position. So that the New 
Eealism has to assume at least three kinds of space to begin 
with, and as many more kinds as may be necessary: 
Pure space, the space of the mathematician ; private space, 
the space which every individual perceiver carries about 
with him; and public space which is the same for every- 
body, and to which each separate private space has to be 



THE JSTEW REALISM 169 

added and adjusted as a system of private cubicles is ad- 
justed to a public dormitory. 

All these spaces, purged from the uncleanness of contra- 
diction and relativity, are real and outside consciousness. 
Even private space is real and outside. It is, indeed, in 
its own mysterious way, not perhaps part of public space, 
as the cubicle is part of the dormitory, but one of the 
infinite, sliding, interpenetrating planes of the pluralistic 
Eeal. On this system private spaces may be imagined as 
being like so many transverse, intersecting beams subsisting 
in public space, cleaving their way through it and through 
each other (as rays of light pierce their unique and un- 
troubled paths through so many sheets of thin glass), and 
constructing with public space a system of most indu- 
bitable outsideness. 

I must leave it to Mr. Bertrand Russell to describe the 
manner of their adjustment. 

" If two men are sitting in a room, two somewhat similar 
worlds are perceived by them; if a third man enters and sits 
between them, a third world, intermediate between the two pre- 
vious worlds, begins to be perceived. . . . The system consist- 
ing of all views of the universe, perceived and unperceived, I 
shall call the system of ' perspectives ' ; I shall confine the ex- 
pression ( private worlds ' to such views of the universe as are 
actually perceived. Thus a i private world ' is a perceived ' per- 
spective'; but there may be any number of unperceived per- 
spectives. 

" Two men are sometimes found to perceive very similar 
perspectives, so similar that they can use the same words to 
describe them. ... In case the similarity is very great, we say 
the points of view of the two perspectives are near together in 
space; but this space in which they are near together is totally 
different from the space inside the two perspectives. It is a 
relation between the two perspectives, and is not in either of 
them; no one can perceive it, and if it is to be known it can be 
only by inference. Between two perceived perspectives which 
are similar, we can imagine a whole series of other perspec- 
tives, some at least unperceived, and such that between any two, 
however similar, there are others still more similar. In this 



170 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

way the space which consists of relations between perspectives 
can be rendered continuous, and (if we choose) three-dimen- 
sional. . . . There are as many private spaces as there are per- 
spectives; there are therefore at least as many as there are 
percipients. . . . But there is only one perspective space, whose 
elements are single perspectives, each with its own private 
space. . . . 

" These private spaces will each count as one point, or at any 
rate as one element, in perspective space. They are ordered by 
means of their similarities. Suppose, for example, that we 
start from one which contains the appearance of a circular 
disc, such as would be called a penny, and suppose this appear- 
ance, in the perspective in question, is circular, not elliptic. 
We can then form a whole series of perspectives containing a 
graduated series of circular appearances of various sizes: for 
this purpose we have only to move (as we say) towards the 
penny or away from it. The perspectives in which the penny 
looks circular will be said to lie on a straight line in perspective 
space, and their order on this line will be that of the sizes of 
the circular aspects. . . . 

"In order to explain the correlation of private spaces with 
perspective space, we have first to explain what is meant by ' the 
place (in perspective space) where a thing is. . . .' We can 
form another straight line of perspectives in which the penny 
is seen end on and looks like a straight line of a certain thick- 
ness. These two lines will meet in a certain place in perspec- 
tive, i.e., in a certain perspective, which may be defined as ' the 
place (in perspective space) where the. penny is.' "... 

" Having now defined the perspective which is the place where 
a given thing is, we can understand what is meant by saying 
that the perspectives in which a thing looks large are nearer to 
the thing than those in which it looks small: they are, in fact, 
nearer to the perspective which is the place where the thing 
is. 

" We can now also explain the correlation between a private 
space and parts of perspective space. If there is an aspect of a 
given thing in a certain private space, then we correlate the 
place where this aspect is in the private space with the place 
where the thing is in perspective space." (Our Knowledge of 
the External World, pp. 87-92.) 

We are meant to see at once that such a space bequeaths 
its own reality and peculiar outsideness to the things that 



THE NEW KEALISM 171 

occupy it. Given that the adjustment of private to public 
space is an outside affair it is possible for New Kealism to 
proclaim boldly the outsideness and publicity of sense- 
data. There is no sensation so elementary and so imme- 
diate that it cannot rank as perception of an outside real 
thing. Only from the private point of view of the per- 
ceiver can it be regarded as a private object enshrined in 
private space. Sensations: red, hot, loud, rough, hard, 
heavy, are not my internal and private response to an ex- 
ternal nerve stimulus, nor are they yours ; they are planted 
out in the object; or rather, they subsist in the object by 
its and their own right. They are objects. 

It follows that for Eealism, as for Idealism, there will 
be no difference between the so-called primary and sec- 
ondary qualities. If position, extension, size, shape, 
weight and impenetrability are real, we have no reason 
for supposing that the secondary qualities of matter: 
colour, and sound and taste and smell are not real too. 

This point is too important to be passed over with a 
summary reference. 

Again it is a question of logical construction and correla- 
tion, and the inferences we make therefrom. Such sense- 
data, whatever else they may be, are to be classed among 
what Mr. Bertrand Eussell calls " hard " facts. They are 
given, not inferred; they are irreducible to anything 
simpler than themselves. We infer that they have an ob- 
jective or " independent " reality from the fact that they 
enter obediently into the context of objective or " inde- 
pendent " realities ; they can be correlated with them so 
as to form part of the same logical construction ; they show 
themselves as belonging not only to the same universe, but 
to the same order of reality within the universe. For the 
thorough-paced realist and thorough-paced idealist alike 
the distinction between the illusions and realities of sense 
is irrelevant. They are distinguished only by their re- 
spective contexts. 



172 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

But it is a distinction which makes all the difference 
between Realism and thorough-paced Idealism. 

Thus Mr. Bertrand Russell in Our Knowledge of the 
External World: — 

" The first thing to realize is that there are no such things as 
' illusions of sense.' Objects of sense, even when they occur 
in dreams, are the most indubitably real objects known to us. 
What, then, makes us call them unreal in dreams ? Merely the 
unusual nature of their connection with other objects of sense. 
I dream that I am in America, but I wake up and find myself 
in England without those intervening days on the Atlantic 
which, alas ! are inseparably connected with a ' real f visit to 
America. Objects of sense are called ' real ' when they have 
the kind of connection with other objects of sense which ex- 
perience has led us to regard as normal ; when they fail in this, 
they are called illusions. But what is illusory is only the infer- 
ences to which they give rise; in themselves, they are every bit 
as real as the objects of waking life." (Pp. 85-86.) 

Thus Mr. Edwin Holt in The Place of Illusory Expe- 
rience in a Realistic World, taking up the idealistic chal- 
lenge : — 

" Not the illusory or hallucinatory image as such, it was 
rightly said by our opponent, but such an image when it asserts 
itself to be, or when the realist asserts it to be a real object, 
is the crux for realism." (The New Realism, p. 356.) 

" Now the secondary qualities present interrelations, both 
fixed and intelligible, so that those persons who seriously study 
them begin to see that they form a system like the systems dis- 
covered in mathematics; and this fact alone, as some one has 
said, already sets them off from the purely ' subjective/ indi- 
vidual, and incalculable." (Ibid. p. 331.) 

Mr. Holt's argument is too closely and elaborately knit 
to bear quotation of any single passage. This is the gist 
of it: Take a whole class of so-called sense-illusions 
(errors of space), the diminution, duplication, and dis- 
tortion of an object. A suitable apparatus can produce 
mechanically and objectively the perfect counterpart of 



THE NEW KEALISM 173 

these effects. There is a certain mechanical focussing of 
the eyes by which, when our eyes are shut, near things can 
be made to seem nearer and smaller. There is a certain 
mechanical focussing by which a machine for manu- 
facturing shoe-lasts copies its model. " The machine at 
work has quite the air of seeing its model." So much so 
that the nearer the centre of the last is brought to the cut- 
ting edge of the machine, the smaller the model that the 
machine turns out. Again, " The stereoscopic camera 
habitually sees double," as human eyes will if their several 
perspectives are divided. A roubly cut lens distorts as 
badly as an astigmatic eye. 

And the realist argues thus: As in these cases there 
isn't any question of the self-subsistent reality either of 
the single, undiminished, undistorted object, or of its 
doubling, reduction and distortion, so there should be no 
question in the case of the human apparatus which is 
equally mechanical. Both affairs are of the same order. 

As for the so-called subjective hallucinations, for in- 
stance, of dreams, they are precisely on the same footing 
as " objective " sensations. 

" The nervous system, even when unstimulated from without, 
is able to generate within itself nerve-currents of those fre- 
quencies whose density factor is the same as in ordinary 
peripheral stimulation." (Ibid. p. 352.) 

And Mr. Alexander is no less explicit. Eor him sense- 
data are on precisely the same footing as an " object of 
thought," and equally independent of the mind that thinks 
or senses. 

" For us, both the sensum and the so-called object of thought 
are equally objects, non-psychical; they are equally objects 
meant, though they are not equally important. 

" Doubtless it is difficult enough, without natural and philo- 
sophical prepossessions, to treat the sensum as an object in- 
dependent of the mind, for which the mind with its sense organ, 
through its act of sensing, is the mere vehicle of reception. 



174 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

Partly this arises from our theoretical ignorance of what exactly 
in the object the sensum is as compared with the percept. To 
call the sensum blue, as I have done, using a Leibnizian meta- 
phor, a fulguration of the quality blueness is admittedly but a 
metaphor. And I am not yet prepared to supply the defect in 
theory. The sensum is so fragmentary and elementary. But 
at least we can say that, whatever it may be, it is that which 
exists in the thing at the moment and place to which it is re- 
ferred, and that it is equally and identically apprehensible by 
me and another person who should put himself into the same 
situation of place and time as I, and who is supposed for sim- 
plicity to be equally normal with me, and to be suffering from 
no special subjective condition different from mine which 
might differently affect his susceptibility to the sensory object." 
(The Basis of Realism, pp. 16, 17.) 

Again : 

" I see the table in different perspective according to my 
position. But this does not prove the visual object psychical — 
a mere content, but only that the object looks different from 
different angles . . . the appearances are real characters of the 
thing. And so when the stick is seen bent in water, its visual 
character is bent because of the refraction of the light; the 
illuminated outline is bent. But of course the touched stick 
is not bent. 

" These facts . . . point to the superior value of touch-ex- 
perience and the greater importance of primary qualities, as in 
the first place apprehended by touch, over the secondary ones 
. . . the primary qualities are in precisely the same position 
with regard to our minds as the secondary ones. Either both 
of them are mental or neither." (Ibid. pp. 17, 18.) 

The plain man ought to rejoice at this rehabilitation of 
the world he takes for granted ; the irreducible real world 
outside consciousness, resonant as a drum, hard as marble, 
bearing all the heraldry of its colours in its own right; 
the world that Dr. Johnson believed in; the world that 
Eeid and Wolf — the Wolf who sent Kant into a dogmatic 
slumber — took for granted without any aid from analytic 
logic. 

Consider what has happened. This world was badly 



THE NEW KEALISM 175 

shaken when Berkeley melted down the primary objective 
qualities of matter into secondary subjective qualities, and 
declared their esse to be per dpi, when Hume reduced 
causation to fortuitous sequences of sensation, and Mill 
defined the result as " a permanent possibility of sensa- 
tion." And when Objective Idealism proved that con- 
sciousness is considerably more than a stream of sensa- 
tions, when it raised up the world again out of the flux 
and stuck the broken bits of it together with " thought- 
relations," its indubitable " outside " reality was still 
" inside " universal consciousness. And it is this uni- 
versality of consciousness that the New Eealism has laid 
its hands on. 

So far Idealism and Eealism can get along fairly com- 
fortably together: they can, at any rate, both agree that 
all the qualities of matter are in the same boat : there is no 
difference on either theory between primary and secondary 
qualities. It is over the " thought-relations " that the 
decisive battle is to be fought. 

The New Eealism abolishes the entire system of thought- 
relations which Idealism has built up. It repudiates the 
idealist's theory of " internal " relations, relations snugly, 
yet inscrutably housed in their " terms." For Eealism 
there are terms and there are relations. But, though rela- 
tions are concepts, they are not " the work of thought." 
And in no case is a relation dependent on its terms, or 
grounded mysteriously in their secret inner nature. 
Every relation is an outside and self-subsistent reality, in- 
dependent both of the relater and the related. There is, 
properly speaking, no relater. A relation is a thing devoid 
of secrecy or mystery, plain as a pike-staff or the nose on 
your face, and offering not the smallest foothold to Ideal- 
istic Monism. Useless to enquire how a relation and its 
terms come together. They are together, for shorter or 
longer periods ; that is enough : that is the beginning and 
the end of — the relation. 



176 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

And, as sense-data — the greenish-gold, the loud, the 
cold, the smooth, the heavy, the acrid-smelling, the hitter- 
tasting, all the secondary qualities that I sense, say, in a 
brass trombone — are outside and self-subsistent objects of 
sensation; and as percepts, such as the brass trombone 
itself, localized, for me, in close and intimate relation to 
my sense organs as I play it, and in more or less distant 
relation to the concert hall I play it in, to the other instru- 
ments in the orchestra, and the other things in the hall, as 
the brass trombone, the percept, is the outside and self- 
subsistent object of perception, so the concepts, brass trom- 
bone, greenish goldenness, loudness, coldness, smoothness, 
heaviness, acridity and bitterness, are outside and self-sub- 
sistent objects of conception. But they are no more " in " 
the object of sense-perception than they are " in " or " of r ' 
the perceiving consciousness. They would have given con- 
siderable trouble, and raised the most disconcerting di- 
lemmas if they had been ; so they, too, are planted out ; 
not in space, not in time ; but in a world of their own ; the 
world of the changeless and eternal Ideas. If there be 
any world of the Absolute it is theirs and theirs alone. 

Here, after twenty-three centuries, Platonic Idealistic 
Realism has come again into its own. 

There must be no misunderstanding about the position 
of ideals, concepts, or " universals " in the New Eealistic 
scheme. 

" No sentence can be made up without at least one word 
which denotes a universal. The nearest approach would be 
some such statement as ' I like this.' But even here the word 
i like ' denotes a universal, for I may like other things and 
other people may like things. Thus all truths involve univer- 
sals, and all knowledge of truths involves acquaintance with 
universals." 

The universal cannot be a so-called u abstract * idea ; 
an idea seated firmly in particulars and picked out of 
them by the mind. Take, for example, the idea of white- 



THE NEW EEALISM 177 

ness or the idea of the triangle that Bishop Berkeley argued 
about, the triangle which must be " neither oblique, nor 
rectangle, neither equilateral, equicrural, nor scalenon, but 
all and none of these at once/' an unqualified triangle, a 
triangle tout pur. 

" A difficulty emerges as soon as we ask ourselves how we 
know that a thing is white or a triangle. If we wish to avoid the 
universals whiteness and triangularity, we shall choose some 
particular patch of white or some particular triangle, and say 
that anything is white or a triangle if it has the right sort of 
resemblance to our chosen particular." (Bertrand Russell, 
The Problems of Philosophy, pp. 146, 150.) 

But this is only putting off the evil day when we have to 
recognize the presence of the universal. For 

" the resemblance required will have to be a universal. Since 
there are many white things, the resemblance must hold be- 
tween many pairs of particular white things; and this is the 
characteristic of a universal. It will be useless to say that 
there is a different resemblance for each pair, for we shall have 
to say that these resemblances resemble each other, and thus 
at last we shall be forced to admit resemblance as a universal. 
The relation of resemblance, then, must be a true univer- 
sal. . . ." 

" Consider such a proposition as Edinburgh is north of Lon- 
don. Here we have a relation between two places, and it seems 
plain that the relation subsists independently of our knowledge 
of it. . . . The part of the earth's surface where Edinburgh 
stands would be north of the part where London stands, even 
if there were no human being to know north or south, and even 
if there were no minds at all in the universe." (Ibid. pp. 
151, 152.) 

This follows, as we have seen, from the realistic theory 
of perception, so that, before we go on to consider the 
doctrine of universals, we may assume it to be true that 

" nothing mental is presupposed in the fact that Edinburgh 
is north of London. But this fact involves the relation ' north 
of/ which is a universal, and it would be impossible for the 



178 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

whole fact to involve nothing mental, if the relation ' north of/ 
which is a constituent part of the fact, did involve anything 
mental." 

(Idealists will again agree heartily with this view. It 
would, indeed, be impossible.) 

"Hence we must admit that the relation, like the terms it 
relates, is not dependent upon thought, but belongs to the inde- 
pendent world which thought apprehends but does not cre- 
ate. . . ." 

" If we ask, ' Where and when does this relation exist ? ' the 
answer must be ' Nowhere and nowhen.' There is no place or 
time where we can find the relation ' north of.' ... It is neither 
in space nor in time, neither material nor mental; yet it is 
something. . . ." 

" Thoughts and feelings, minds and physical objects exist. 
But universals do not exist in this sense; we shall say that 
they subsist or have being, where being is opposed to l existence ' 
as being timeless. The world of universals, therefore, may also 
be described as the world of being. 

" The world of being is unchangeable, rigid, exact, delightful 
to the mathematician, the logician, the builder of metaphysical 
systems, and all who love perfection more than life." (Ibid. 
pp. 153-156.) 

Thus Mr. Edward Spalding in his Defence of Analysis: 

" The concept is not the printed or spoken sign, the word. 
It would subsist, did the signs not exist. ... It is not the 
knowledge or idea of the state of affairs." [The concept or 
group of concepts.] ..." It is not identical with the individual 
cases, whatever these be. Number is not any one number, man 
is not a man, etc. It is not necessarily even physical or mental, 
even when the individual cases are physical or mental exist- 
ents." (The New Realism, p. 233.) 

Thus Mr. Cecil Delisle Burns in William of Ockham on 
Universals: 

". . . The facts of experience necessitate the supposition of 
(1) particulars differing numerically and not as collections of 



THE NEW KEALISM 179 

different qualities, and (2) likenesses implying the existence of 
some sort of reality which is different from the reality of the 
particulars " . . . " the likeness ' between ' particulars has to 
be explained by reference to a third thing which we may call 
a universal. Nor can the mere addition or blurring of par- 
ticulars (thisnesses) produce a likeness (whatness). The uni- 
versal, therefore, must be a kind of reality in relation to which 
the particulars are i alike/ Thus it exists beside, and, if you 
like it, above or beyond the particulars." ..." We may say that 
universals are 'in mente/ but that they are and are independ- 
ently of our knowledge of them there is no doubt. Therefore 
they exist in some other way than the way particulars exist; 
hence we say that the likeness 'in' things is not the universal 
hut indicates the universal/' (Pp. 13-19.) 

The italics are mine. They emphasise the most impor- 
tant point of all. 

The reason for this planting out is not far to seek; it 
follows from the law of analytic logic, which postulates 
the independence and the reality and the infinite number 
of its universals. 

For the validity of all reasoning, both inductive and 
deductive, depends on the presence, somewhere in the 
chain, of a universal proposition, either arrived at or as- 
sumed, either expressed or implied. In deduction, which 
proceeds from the universal to the particular, it is obvious 
that this is so. But it is no less imperative in all induc- 
tion, which proceeds, at its logical peril, from the particu- 
lar to the universal. Logical peril : for, consider, that by 
no possible conjuring can you obtain a universal proposi- 
tion from the simple enumeration of particular cases. 
Not if you went on enumerating for ten thousand years, 
untold generations of observers taking up the tale. Eor 
the peculiar, indefinable, indestructible validity of a uni- 
versal law is not born of tireless and vociferous repetition. 

But deduction must obtain its universal somewhere. 
You must therefore assume the existence of as many uni- 
versals as there are possible propositions if there is to be 
any reasoning at all. 



u 



180 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

It follows that, if reasoning is to hold good of the real 
world, universals must be as real, as independent of con- 
sciousness, as any of the realities which analytic logic has 
shown to be firmly established in space and time. 

Universals, then, are concepts; but concepts are not 

thought-relations " in the idealist's sense ; nor are they 
in any sense constructed or constituted by thought. They 
are entities ; objects of conception, independent of the 
conceiver, standing on their own feet in their own spaceless 
and timeless world, as objects of perception stand in space 
and time. 

There is a concept or universal, not only of every num- 
ber and quantity, and every thing and every quality, but of 
every possible relation that obtains between all or any of 
them ; and of every proposition that can be made concern- 
ing all or any of them ; 36 so that the world of the univer- 
sals is as infinite as the world of space or time. If you 
ask how, apart from their logical functions, they may be 
said to he, the answer is that they are as objects of con- 
ceptual contemplation. 

Now it is clear that on this theory the role of conscious- 
ness is reduced to the very narrowest margin ; and that the 
Self will be nothing more than the spectator of existence. 

As Mr. Joseph Conrad says : " This is purely a spec- 
tacular universe." There is nothing in it which can be 
said to have arisen in consciousness. Thus, a magnificent 
spectacle has been provided, at the expense of conscious- 
ness, by the ruthless planting out on to a distant stage of 
everything once held securely within it. 

If we ask whether, within the Self's narrow border, 
there remains anything at all that is the work of conscious- 
ness, we are told : Yes ; besides the primary and second- 
ary qualities of matter there are certain tertiary qualities 
that cannot be planted out with them. Such are the aes- 
thetic feelings and values, the moral feelings and values; 



THE NEW KEALISM 181 

delight, charm, and their opposites, all that Mr. Alexander 
calls " the richness of mind," and all that is creative in the 
objects of creative art. These are purely subjective. 
They have no home anywher3 but in the Self that feels 
them. It is interesting to see that Mr. Alexander in- 
cludes among them beauty and goodness, which to Mr. G. 
E. Moore and Mr. Bertrand Kussell are essentially ob- 
jective realities, universals; and that Mr. Kalph Perry 
recognizes what he calls " content patterns," as deter- 
mined exclusively by the agency (selective and combining) 
of the subject of consciousness. Mr. Perry also admits 
that 

"higher complexes, such as history, society, life, or reflective 
thought, are dependent on consciousness ; " 

but whether he would get any backing here from his 
brother realists is open to doubt. 

The emotions and the passions, which might have loomed 
so large, are left out of the accounts I have referred to — 
probably as too glaringly subjective for special notice. 

Personally, I do not see how, on the theory, the Self can 
be justly credited with the work of its imagination. For 
imagination deals with universals, and has its home in the 
eternal. Therefore one would have supposed that creative 
Art was the least subjective of entities. Its works are 
planted out for ever in the spaceless and the timeless 
world. 

I do not know whether this conclusion would be held to 
follow strictly from the premisses of the New Realism. 
But I think it should follow. There is, however, I be- 
lieve, considerable divergence of opinion on this point. 

I think it must be allowed that the New Eealism has 
made out a strong case for itself, and that where Pragma- 
tism and Humanism have failed it has succeeded. 

I do not think that the idealistic monist will gain any- 



182 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

thing by refusing to concede to it the full measure of its 
success. I believe that, if he meets it courageously, so far 
from driving him out of the bosom of the Absolute, it will 
fold him more securely in. If he thrives on what Walt 
Whitman called " the terrible doubt of appearances," if 
there is nothing terrible to him in that doubt, it is because 
to him the terrible thing would be to be shut up for ever 
in this prison of space and time and matter, and to know 
nothing for ever but appearances, when it is reality for 
which he hungers and thirsts. 

To begin with, whatever Pluralistic Eealism does to him, 
it does not shut him up in any prison. On the contrary, 
to borrow Mr. Bertrand Russell's phrase, it " gives him 
wings." It proves to him that the bosom he desires, the 
barren bosom of the Absolute, is a prison indeed. The 
universe it opens to him has no walls, not even the walls of 
all-containing deity. It is only to be conceived, so far as it 
can be conceived at all, as an infinite number of infinitely 
intersecting planes of reality, each one of which is infinite. 
Each plane represents a different kind or order of reality, 
and maintains an infinite number of realities within or on 
it. Time and space and matter are not prisons ; for time 
and space and matter are infinite, and there is an infinite 
number of times and spaces and matters and motions. 
Time and space contain an infinite number of separate 
planes, as it were, of spatial and temporal and material 
realities; of these there are an infinite number of objects 
of sensation, an infinite number of objects of perception, 
and an infinite number of their relations in time and space. 

There is also an infinite number of a universals," the 
objects of conception, out of time and out of space, corre- 
sponding with every class of object in time and space: and 
again, an infinite number of relations out of time or space, 
and an infinite number of universals, or class-concepts cor- 
responding with each relation. And as every single num- 



THE NEW EEALISM 183 

ber of this infinity of infinities is a real thing, an entity, the 
monist cannot justly complain of any lack of reality. 

But while the New Realism gives him reality, more 
reality than he asked or dreamed of, reality in embarrass- 
ing, overwhelming quantities, it does not give or profess 
to give him the kind or quality of reality he wants. The 
New Realism, in its turn, complains of his bad taste in 
wanting any other reality and of his impudence in asking 
for it. But there is no reason why the monist should not 
admire this largely spectacular universe Realism has pro- 
vided. What he has reason to complain of is its lack 
of unity. 

Then the pluralist tells him that unity, except in the 
peculiar and limited form of a Whole, is precisely what he 
cannot have. And since the Whole was, after all, what 
the monist performed nearly all his monistic tricks with, 
he may seek to bargain with his adversary and say : You 
may keep all your infinities, for all I care, if only you will 
give me back my Whole to do what I like with (for he 
thinks he may yet succeed in packing all those infinities 
inside it in some supreme synthesis). And then he will 
learn to his bewilderment that it is no longer his to do 
what he likes with. 

In fact, he will not recognize his Whole by the time 
analytic logic has done with it. 

To begin with, it raises all over again the apparently 
innocent but really formidable question which Monism 
has hitherto answered with an unhesitating affirmative: 
Is the relation between whole and part such that, given the 
concept of the whole, the concept of the part follows % 
That is to say : Is it a relation of logical priority ? If it 
is, it ought to follow as strictly as the two propositions: 
" B is greater than A," and " A is less than B " follow 
from and imply each other. 



184 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

" Then we should be able to define the relation thus : A is 
said to be part of B when B is implies A is, but A is does not 
imply B is." (Principia Mathematica.) 

Now at first sight this looks a very straightforward and 
satisfactory definition of the relation between whole and 
part. And it looks as if it might favour Monism by at- 
taching the whole inseparably to the part and the part in- 
separably to the whole ina" unity. " But not a bit of it. 
Mr. Bertrand Russell rejects the definition on the grounds 
that this relation of logical priority cannot be made to run 
on all fours with the relation of simple mutual implication 
between " B is greater than A " and " A is less than B " ; 
that it is not a simple but a highly complex proposition ; in- 
asmuch as it implies other propositions asserting the being 
of A, and the being of B, and the being of the relation, 
each of which is simpler than itself ; and that it rests, not 
only on the proposition " B implies A," but on the further 
proposition " A does not imply B." 

The invalidity of the definition by logical priority will 
be seen at once if we introduce an element of another 
kind and value. 

" For example, ' A is greater and better than B ' implies l B 
is less than A ? ; but the converse implication does not hold: 
yet the latter proposition is not part of the former." 

Again, from " A is red," it follows that A is coloured. 

" Yet the proposition ' A is red ' is no more complex than l A 
is coloured.' . . . Redness in fact, appears to be a simple concept 
which, though it implies colour, does not contain colour as a 
constituent." 

And Mr. Bussell argues that, " having failed to define 
wholes by logical priority, we shall not, I think, find it 
possible to define them." 

Now, I think, the monist would agree heartily that if 
the relation of whole and part is not to be defined by logi- 



THE NEW REALISM 185 

cal priority, it is not to be defined at all. He would not 
be at all so certain that the definition he thinks so satis- 
factory should be flung aside because analysis finds that 
it is less simple than it looked at first. He would, I think, 
protest against propositions, that is to say, judgments cover- 
ing concrete complexes being ruled out because it can be 
shown that they will not hold good when reduced to the 
strictly abstract terms of formal logic. He defies the 
analyst to discover any flaw in the definition: A is said 
to be part of B when " B is " implies " A is " but " A is " 
does not imply " B is." And Mr. Russell admits that 
" this state of things is realized when A is part of B." It 
seems to him, then, sheer wantonness to infect this still 
comparatively simple relation by complicating it with irrel- 
evant elements drawn from other sources; and then to 
argue that, because " worse " is very far from being part 
of " better," and because colour, implied by red, is not a 
part of red, therefore logical implication must not be al- 
lowed to infect any definition of whole and part, when it 
has been admitted that it holds good when, that is to say, 
whenever and wherever A is part of B. 

But Mr. Russell is out to prove that this particular 
relation of whole and part is an indefinable and ultimate 
relation, a concept as irreducible as goodness or badness, 
redness or colour, and that there is no question of the 
whole holding its parts together in a unity, or of the parts 
as existing only in and for a unity. Correlation, for the 
logical atomism of the pluralistic realist, does not involve 
either " higher synthesis," or mutual dependence of rela- 
tions on terms, or of terms on each other. Concepts are 
hard, irreducible, mutually repellent entities, and relations 
are hard, irreducible, mutually repellent entities ; and when 
propositions are broken up they are broken. What ana- 
lytic logic hath put asunder, let no man join. 

But this is not the end of the matter. Besides this 
indefinable and ultimate relation there are others. And 



186 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

we are now told that the nature of the relation will depend 
upon " the nature both of the whole and of the parts." 
For it would appear that though a relation is not allowed, 
on pain of an infinite regress, to depend upon the nature 
of its terms when this dependence suits the monist, it may 
do so for the convenience of the pluralist, who in this case 
blinks the dilemma with tolerance and bonhomie. 

Thus three kinds of wholes may be distinguished: (1) 
Collections or aggregates of single terms. (2) Collections 
or aggregates of terms that are themselves aggregates. 
(3) Collections of propositions which relate or qualify. 

It is only when we reach the third and last kind of 
whole that we arrive at unity. 

As this whole always consists of propositions in which 
something is related to something, or something is quali- 
fied by something else, it must be regarded as radically 
and irreducibly different from any whole which is simply 
a collection or aggregate, whether of single terms or aggre- 
gates. And the relation of whole and part in any unity 
will be radically and irreducibly different from the rela- 
tion of whole to part in any collection or aggregate. So 
much so that we may say that there are not three kinds of 
whole but two kinds: Collections (or aggregates) and 
unities. 

And the radical and irreducible difference between 
these two kinds is this: that in a collection, whether of 
single terms or aggregates, 

" such a whole is completely specified when all its simple con- 
stituents are specified: its parts have no direct connection 
inter se, but only the indirect connection involved in being 
parts of one and the same whole." 

Whereas wholes containing relations or predicates 

" are not specified when their parts are all known." (Ibid. p. 
140.) 



THE NEW EEALISM 187 

For, take the simplest instance, " A differs from B," 
and let A and B be as simple as you please, you cannot 
reduce this whole to anything simpler, i.e. to fewer terms 
than " A," " B," and " difference.' 7 Simple as it seems, 
" A differs from B " is really a very complex synthetic 
statement. Under analysis it yields, as we have seen, " A, 
B, and difference " as a subordinate aggregate of three 
terms, and the whole involved in its implication, " B differs 
from A." " A," " B," and " difference," must be thought 
of as three single and irreducible terms before ever the busi- 
ness of joining up A to B in the relation of their difference 
can begin. The relation itself is a new thing that will 
not be found in the analysis, and is " not even specified by 
specifying its parts." 

So that the only unity which Analytic Logic allows him, 
so far, is a unity that doesn't yield an inch of ground to 
the struggling monist. In fact, he is, if anything, worse 
off with it than he was with the whole as a " collection " ; 
since the collection at least collected, and the whole could 
be specified by its terms when the terms were known. 
We have got to realize that always 

" the whole is a new single term, distinct from each of its parts 
and from all: it is one, not many, and is related to the parts 
but has a being distinct from theirs." (Ibid., loc. cit.) 

And the pluralist argues that, since this is so, we can 
no longer talk about identity in difference, or about the 
whole being present in its parts, or about the parts exist- 
ing in the whole. 

And as the monist surveys the ruins which Analytic 
Logic has made of his neatly ordered and closely articu- 
lated world, several things are bound to occur to him. I 
think he will say: All this may be true of finite things 
and of finite wholes. I have never denied the plurality of 
finites. But my Whole is Infinite. 

Let us see, then, what the pluralisms account is of In- 



188 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

finite Wholes, and whether they are in any better case. 

" We must then admit infinite aggregates. It remains to 
ask a more difficult question, namely : Are we to admit infinite 
unities? . . . Are there any infinitely complex propositions? 
... A unity will be infinite when the aggregate of all its con- 
stituents is infinite; but this scarcely constitutes the meaning 
of infinite unity. . . . 

" An infinite unity will be an infinitely complex proposition : 
it must not be analysable in any way into a finite number of 
constituents. . . . Now, for my part, I see no possible way of 
deciding whether propositions of infinite complexity are possible 
or not, but this at least is clear that all the propositions known 
to us (or probably all that we can know) are of finite complexity. 
. . . Thus the question whether or not there are infinite unities 
must be left unanswered, the only thing we can say on this 
subject is that no such unities occur in any department of 
human knowledge, and therefore none such are relevant to the 
foundation of mathematics." (Principia Mathematica, pp. 145, 
146.) 

There is no comfort for the monist here. The only 
sort of infinite whole that Pluralism will allow him is an 
infinite collection; and an infinite collection, so far from 
being any good to him, carries on the business of plurality 
for ever and ever, world without end. 



n 

So far, it must, I think, be admitted that, where the 
logic of the new realist meets the logic of the monist, the 
encounter has been apparently to the disadvantage of the 
monist. Hitherto the monist has either neglected mathe- 
matics altogether, or he has seized on them greedily to 
nourish his appetite for dilemmas. Thus his position be- 
comes vulnerable from the first moment when the mathe- 
matician cuts off his nourishment at its source by solving 
the dilemmas. 

It remains to be seen whether his Idealistic Monism has 
sufficient vitality, or sufficient command of other resources 
to survive the blockade. 

His ultimate and complete overthrow must follow if he 
has no other resources than the slender synthetic methods 
he has employed hitherto; if, that is to say, he stands or 
falls by the entire epistemology of the past. It must fol- 
low, in any case, whatever his unexplored resources, if the 
New Eealism succeeds in its attempt to make the laws of 
pure mathematics binding on a universe which, as known 
and experienced, is anything but pure ; and if it succeeds 
in keeping those laws secure from the assaults of any 
countering analysis which may reveal in them a secret 
contradiction and dilemma. 

I do not say : if its doctrine of Pluralism, and its account 
of knowledge in general, and of immediate perception in 
particular, should hold water ; for I think it will be found 
that, so far as these do not follow as corollaries from its 
mathematical arguments, they have been deliberately ar- 
ranged to correspond. 

Now, there is no doubt that the idealist's habit of rash 

189 



190 A DEFENCE OE IDEALISM 

synthesis has laid him open to attack. Whatever happens 
to the constructions of the New Realism, much of its 
critique of the older Idealism must remain as perhaps the 
most vitally important and necessary work that any phi- 
losophy has yet done. This is why I shall consider this 
part of it in rather more detail than the slight form of 
these essays warrants. Eeaders who have no taste for ab- 
stract thinking will do well to skip the next thirty pages 
or so; for I warn them they will be taken over a very 
dry and difficult piece of ground. At the same time they 
should remember that we despise abstractions at our peril. 
There never was an abstraction so abstract that it or its 
kind was not at some time or other the burning centre of 
man's passion ; and, even now, it may be that our hope of 
God and heaven and immortality, and the present existence 
of our very selves hang on as thin a thread. 

We will begin with Mr. Bertrand Russell's criticism of 
the Monistic Theory of Truth, for it amounts to a criticism 
of the Monistic Theory of Reality. 

The monist says that the Truth is the Whole. And 
Mr. Russell argues that, if this is so, no part of the truth 
can be true. When Mr. Joachim says that " the truth is 
one and whole and complete " it means 

"that nothing is wholly true except the whole truth, and what 
seem to be isolated truths, such as 2 + 2 = 4 are really only 
true in the sense that they form part of a system which is the 
whole truth . . . the truth that a certain partial truth is part 
of the whole is a partial truth, and thus only partially true; 
hence we can never say with perfect truth this is part of the 
Truth. Hence there can be no sense of truth which is com- 
pletely applicable to a partial truth, because everything that 
can be said about a partial truth is a partial truth . . . thus 
the complete truth about any part is the same as the complete 
truth about any other part, since each is the whole truth." 37 

I do not know whether every monist would accept this 
statement of his position. He ought not to admit the very 



THE NEW REALISM 191 

first construction which Mr. Russell has foisted on him, 
as it stands, but he would, I think, amend it thus : Noth- 
ing is wholly true of things that are wholes except the whole 
truth ; by which he will secure his position when he defines 
Reality as the Whole. He would distinguish between iso- 
lated truths and isolated facts ; and while admitting that 
truths, artificially isolated by logical analysis, may be 
" wholly true " as far as they go, he would insist that if 
facts could be isolated, torn from the living context in 
which they are born and by which they continue, if they 
could be stripped bare, that is to say, of their " relations," 
no truth could be known about them at all ; thus he would 
deny that " isolated facts " and " the whole truth " can be 
made to run logically on all fours. Eor instance, though 
it may be wholly true that water consists of HgOj in 
chemical combination, it is not the whole truth about 
water ; it is not the whole truth about hydrogen or oxygen. 
And by this time he would begin to see that the trap that 
was laid for him is a logical quibble turning on the " whole 
truth " and " wholly true." 

The only construction that he would accept without 
reservation is the last, " the complete truth about any 
part is the complete truth about any other part since each 
is the whole of truth." The point which Monism and 
Pluralism will contest for ever is the point at which the 
complete truth may be said to have been reached. For the 
pluralist, if he is logically consistent, there can be no such 
point, since the parts of his universe are infinite. For 
the Monist, it cannot be reached anywhere short of the 
Absolute. 

We shall see, later on, that the pluralist reaches it every- 
where by the erection of an infinity of independent abso- 
lutes. 

To go back to the assault on Mr. Joachim. My monist 
has accepted the first and the last construction put on him. 
It is in the intermediate propositions that he would be 



192 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

likely to suspect a humorous parody of his position: 
" What seem to be isolated truths, such as 2 -f- 2 = 4, are 
really only true in the sense that they form part of the 
system which is the whole truth. ..." " The truth that 
a certain partial truth is part of the whole is a partial truth 
and thus only partially true ; hence we can never say with 
perfect truth .' this is part of the truth.' " The monist 
who believes that nothing is wholly true, in his sense, ex- 
cept the whole truth, is not bound to deny that 2 -f- 2 = 4 
is part of the truth ; he is only bound to deny that it is the 
whole truth about 2 and about 4, and that the whole truth 
about 2 and about 4 is the whole truth about number, and 
that the whole truth about number is the whole truth about 
reality. He would insist that if you isolate that appar- 
ently self-evident proposition about 2 and 2 in such a way 
as to ignore the other " isolated truths " about number, 
for instance, that 16 + 16 = 32, or 4 -f- 2 = 2, or even 
that 7 X 7 = 49, you have only a partial knowledge of 
2 -f- 2. And again he would protest against the quibble 
that turns on taking a partial truth as equivalent to par- 
tially true. 

But the sterner problem for the monist arises when you 
isolate all the truths you know about number from all the 
truths you know about quality, and find that, although 
within their own wholes none are completely true when 
torn from their respective contexts, yet the whole set of 
arithmetical truths, and the whole set of qualitative truths 
stand apparently on their own feet, and in the most perfect 
isolation and independence. If it were not true that 
2 -|- 1 = 3, it would still be true that water consists of 
two parts of hydrogen to one of oxygen. That in this case 
we should have considerable difficulty in measuring the 
parts is not any argument from the pluralistic realist's 
point of view. Wherever water is there will be HaC^ 
whether you measure and number them or not. In the 
same way the numbers two and one and three, and all the 



THE NEW REALISM 193 

relations between them, would persist as eternal realities, 
and all the truths about them would be eternally true, 
whether there were any thing to be numbered in the uni- 
verse or not. (In this case the numbers would still have 
the resource of numbering each other.) 

And yet, without quantity, so much hydrogen to so much 
oxygen, without proportion which can be expressed by 
number, the qualities of water cannot be. You cannot, 
except by an artificial logical analysis tear those two wholes 
apart. Therefore they are not wholes ; they are only com- 
plexes, knit together, with all their several complexities, 
into the structure of the universe. Isolate them, not from 
each other, but from that greater Whole, and what inde- 
pendence and what reality will they have? 

That is the crux. The pluralistic realist says they have 
their own reality and that is enough. The monist says that 
in that state of dismemberment they have no reality ; they 
are only appearances; Reality is the Absolute whole of 
Spirit (or of some consciousness) which alone holds them 
together. Both agree that somehow or other they are to- 
gether. The monist says, or ought to say, that they can 
only be separated by an arbitrary process of abstraction. 

It looks as if the realist, rashly supposing that the ideal- 
ist is always talking and thinking about ideas, had taken 
for granted that he could be floored by an argument that 
rests on an unreal abstraction; whereas the world the 
monist is considering is the same real and related world, 
the world of intricate connections and mutual dependencies 
and correspondences, of things linked and platted together 
and interwoven, and separable only in thought. Nobody is 
contending that the truth 2 -f- 2 = 4 is an unreal ab- 
straction, or that it is not a holy and eternal truth, if all 
the other truths about number are holy and eternal too ; or 
that a partial truth is not true as far as it goes. The 
idealist is, I think, well within his rights in protesting 
against Mr. Bertrand Russell's use of the terms " the whole 



194 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

truth " and " a partial truth " as equivalent to wholly true 
and partially true. 

The destructive force of Mr. Russell's argument rests 
on this dubious equivalence and on nothing else. 

Let us take things as they are, in the concrete. It is 
wholly true that Mr. Bertrand Russell is a brilliant mathe- 
matician, but it is not the whole truth about Mr. Bertrand 
Russell. Mr. Bertrand Russell is more than a brilliant 
mathematician, he is a brilliant logician, he is a brilliant 
writer, he is (unfortunately at the present moment), a 
pacifist, and he is a number of other things besides. He is 
a pluralistic universe in himself. 

But he is a universe, a whole. 

And that he is a brilliant mathematician is so far from 
being the whole truth about him that it is not the whole 
truth about the brilliance of his mathematics, which is in- 
separable from the brilliance of his logic. If we knew 
the whole truth about Mr. Bertrand Russell, we should 
know why he is a brilliant mathematician and logician. 
We should even know why he is, at this unfortunate mo- 
ment, a pacifist. What we do not know about all this bril- 
liance is its inevitableness as a quality of Mr. Bertrand 
Russell. 

Mr. Russell would point out that our proposition can 
perfectly well stand alone ; that it is wholly true and suf- 
ficiently significant in itself. And I do not see that the 
monist is pledged to deny this, even while maintaining that 
we are as far as ever from the ultimate truth, the ultimate 
reality of Mr. Russell. 

Mr. Bertrand Russell, and his mathematics and the rest 
of it, is an instance that serves the monist very well. For 
the personality of Mr. Russell is precisely that sort of 
spiritual whole he has in mind when he declares that the 
Whole is present in its parts, and that the parts have no 
complete significance apart from the whole. Whether he 



THE NEW EEALISM 195 

has grounds for maintaining that the Reality of the uni- 
verse is of that nature remains to be seen. 

Meanwhile, when Mr. Joachim, the monist quoted by 
Mr. Russell, says, "The erring subject's confident belief in 
the truth of his knowledge distinctly characterizes error and 
converts a partial apprehension of the truth into falsity," 
he certainly lays himself open to the attack of Mr. Rus- 
sell's brilliant logic. But he is deserting the game of 
Monism, and stating a private theory of truth. All that 
his metaphysical theory commits him to is the statement 
that, if a man believes a partial truth to be a whole truth, 
he is in error. And he is in error precisely in Mr. Rus- 
sell's sense. His error consists in a false judgment about 
reality. The confidence of his belief has nothing to do 
with it except so far as it is calculated to keep him in his 
error. 

According to Mr. Bertrand Russell, the unfortunate 
monist has no means of distinguishing between truth and 
error. The two propositions " Bishop Stubbs was hanged 
for murder," and " Bishop Stubbs used to wear gaiters," 
are, for him, on the same level of truth and of reality. 
The monist who looks beyond the partial truth that Bishop 
Stubbs used to wear gaiters to that whole episcopal 
phenomenon of which gaiters are but a part, has no logical 
grounds for denying that Bishop Stubbs was hanged for 
murder. 

And yet the monist's grounds are the same as anybody 
else's grounds, and he has the same right to them. If he 
were defending Bishop Stubbs from a charge of murder, 
he would appeal, not only to the integrity of the episcopal 
phenomenon, but to the whole of the evidence, the whole 
sequence and conglomeration of facts by which it is es- 
tablished beyond doubt that Bishop Stubbs did not, as a 
matter of fact, commit murder. 

That murder and Bishop Stubbs are in no possible way 



196 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

connected cannot be said with perfect truth ; since Bishop 
Stubbs shares the common humanity of all the murderers 
that ever were. In their hypothetical ultimate reality as 
immaterial beings, there is no difference, except a numer- 
ical difference, between all those murderers and Bishop 
Stubbs. And in their hypothetical oneness in the Abso- 
lute (with which numerical identity has absolutely nothing 
to do), there would be absolutely no difference between 
them. All the same, as an apparition (wearing gaiters), 
in space and time, Bishop Stubbs could not, and did not, 
commit murder. 

So far Mr. Russell's arguments have been destructive 
only to a Monism of logical abstractions, the quantitative 
finite whole which is the sum of its parts, the numerical 
one, the abstract absolute. They have no grip on the hy- 
pothesis of a real, living whole, a real Absolute, a real 
unity of finite and infinite, a real Spirit immanent or 
transcendent. 

But Mr. Russell has another and more formidable argu- 
ment. He deduces the whole doctrine of Monism from the 
axiom of internal relations : " Every relation is grounded 
in the nature of the related terms." 

Mr. Russell says that Monism stands or falls by this 
axiom, and tries to show how impossible it is that it should 
be stood by. The discreet monist will therefore think 
twice before he gives his assent to it, for it is the weapon 
Mr. Russell is coming out to slay him with. 

Perhaps he will think of certain obvious relations be- 
tween subject and object, cause and effect, the thing and its 
qualities; between premisses and conclusion, subject and 
predicate; or between positions in space and sequences in 
time, and will say without a moment's hesitation: Yes, 
of course the relation is grounded in the nature of its terms. 
For surely the terms of a relation imply each other. That 
the subject A perceives the object B, implies that it is in the 



THE NEW REALISM 197 

nature of A to perceive B, and of B to be perceived by A ; 
even though nobody knows what that nature is, and though 
the relation remains for ever mysterious. That A is the 
cause of B implies that it is the nature of A to cause B, 
and of B to be caused by A; it is the nature of such and 
such premisses to lead to such and such conclusions, and of 
such and such conclusions to follow. If it were not the 
nature of A to have the quality B, it would not have B, 
and B must be such a quality that it can belong to A. The 
same will hold of subject and predicate in every statement 
made with regard to truth. If A is eternally to the left of 
B, and therefore B eternally to the right of A, there is 
something eternally in their natures which makes these 
positions eternally possible (they must, that is to say, be 
material objects occupying space, and conditioned so as to 
occupy it in that particular relation) ; or, if these posi- 
tions are only temporary, then there is something in their 
natures, a tendency to move or a tendency to perish, which 
makes these positions tenable only temporarily. In saying 
all this, the monist may think that he has stated both the 
correct and the common-sense view of relations. Remem- 
ber, he has not yet committed himself to any explanation 
of their mystery. 

And all the time he is playing disastrously into Mr. 
Russell's hands. 

First of all, it is assumed that he does not distinguish 
between the terms and the nature of the terms. In this 
case he is floored with the same arguments which were 
brought to bear against his theory of the whole and the 
parts. On that theory he cannot make a true statement 
about any relation between two terms without knowing all 
the relations in which each term stands to all other things, 
and without knowing all other things which enter into that 
relation. Say it is the relation of perceiving subject to 
object perceived, he cannot say with perfect truth that A 
perceives B without knowing how many other subjects B is 



198 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

perceived by. And then he hasn't got further than the 
two terms. There is still the relation of perceiving. He 
must therefore know all perceiving wherever perceiving 
occurs. He must therefore know all subjects perceiving 
and all objects perceived. 

I have taken a relation which by its very simplicity and 
comprehensiveness is most dangerously exposed to Mr. 
Russell's attack; but it is clear that his argument applies 
with equal ferocity to all the other instances that have been 
given. 

Again, if relations are grounded in the nature of their 
terms, there can be no diversity of things. Consider the 
relation of diversity. A is different from B, therefore B is 
different from A. Simple unqualified difference cannot be 
predicated as a common adjective of both. They must be 
different in some way. (Mr. Russell does not say so, but 
his argument requires us to consider that A and B differ in 
some way.) They have, then, different predicates. In 
what way do the predicates differ ? They have different 
predicates. In what way do these different predicates dif- 
fer ? They have different predicates. In what way 

But, as it is clear that the process must stop somewhere 
(for even Mr. Russell's Pluralistic Universe would not pro- 
vide the differences necessary to follow up the infinite re- 
gression), we are driven to the conclusion that A and B 
are not different from each other. Neither are C or D or 
E or F. In fact, there are no two things that are different 
from each other. 

"It follows that there is no diversity and that there is only 
one thing. Thus the axiom of internal relations is equivalent 
to the assumption of ontological Monism and to the denial that 
there are any relations. Wherever we seem to have a relation, 
this is really an adjective of the whole composed of terms of the 
supposed relations." (Philosophical Essays, p. 163.) 

In other words, things are predicates of one Thing. It 
follows that 



THE NEW EEALISM 199 

" the one final and complete truth must consist of a proposition 
with one subject, namely, the whole, and one predicate. But as 
this involves distinguishing subject and predicate, as if they 
could be diverse, even this is not quite true." (Ibid. p. 164.) 

And this is assuming that the monist does not distin- 
guish between his terms and their nature. If, with a mis- 
guided subtlety, he does distinguish them, then the same 
pitfall awaits him. Eor then, not only do we have the 
same trouble that we had just now with A and B, but the 
terms and their nature will enter the relation of diversity 
with all its consequences of infinite regression. 

If he sticks to it that the " term " and the " nature " are 
one term, then 

"every true proposition attributing a predicate to a subject is 
purely analytic, since the subject is its own whole nature and 
the predicate is part of that nature . . .; in that case, what is 
the bond that unites predicates into predicates of one subject? 
Any casual collection of predicates might be supposed to com- 
pose the subject if subjects are not other than the system of 
their own predicates." (Ibid. p. 167.) 

Finally, Monism is challenged to account for 

" the apparent multiplicity of the real world. The difficulty is 
that identity in difference is impossible if we adhere to strict 
Monism.. For identity in difference involves many partial 
truths, which combine, by a kind of mutual give and take, into 
one whole of truth. But the partial truths in a strict Monism 
are not merely not quite true; they do not subsist at all. If 
there were such propositions, whether true or false, that would 
be plurality." (Ibid. p. 168.) 

On the other hand, if we accept the realist's proposal 
and give up the axiom of internal relations (if we give up 

Monism), 

" ' Identity in difference ' disappears : there is identity and 
there is difference, and complexes have some elements identical 
and some different, but we are no longer obliged to say of any 
pair of objects that may be mentioned that they are both identi- 



200 A DEFENCE OE IDEALISM 

cal and different — c in a sense,' this sense being something 
which it is vitally necessary to leave undefined. We thus get 
a world of many things, with relations which are not to be 
deduced from a supposed l nature ' or scholastic essence of re- 
lated things. In this world, whatever is complex is composed 
of simple related things, and analysis is no longer confronted at 
every step by an endless regress." (Ibid. p. 169.) 

These passages, I think, show that Mr. Eussell has not 
really grasped the monist's position. The endless regress 
is the very last thing that the monist desires to give up. 
His insistence on the endless regress is sufficient proof that 
he is no more out for a supposed " nature," or " scholastic 
essence," than the pluralist. The " sense " in which he 
declares two things to be both identical and different is 
something which it is " vitally necessary " to his theory to 
define. He has no earthly interest in shirking the defini- 
tion. His sense is not the pluralisms sense, and they are 
therefore arguing at cross purposes. His multiplicity, his 
difference, refers, or should refer, always to appearances, 
to the manifestations of reality. For him, identity in 
difference does not mean that two manifestations are one 
manifestation, but that there is one reality in two, or, if 
you like, in an infinite number of manifestations. His 
Monism may be wrong or it may be right, but it is not 
self-contradictory. 

Challenged to account for the apparent multiplicity of 
the real world, his answer must be that it is apparent, and 
not real, and that the world of appearances is not the real 
world. When he is told that partial truths, in a strict 
Monism, do not subsist at all, because " if there were such 
propositions, whether true or false, that would give plur- 
ality," the retort is obvious : Precisely ; it is incomplete- 
ness that gives plurality. Plurality is the expression of 
partial truth. 

As for " the bond that unites predicates into predicates 
of one subject," he might ask, in his turn, how there can 



THE NEW REALISM 201 

be such a bond without identity in difference ? And, talk- 
ing of casual collections, how does the pluralist propose to 
make his collections stick ? We shall see later on that he 
cannot do it without recourse to the very principle he re- 
pudiates. 

Still, it cannot be denied that a great deal of this critique 
is formidable. It is the heavy artillery of a ferocious 
enemy out to slay. And I think it must be owned, in 
humility and contrition, that Idealism has brought it on 
itself, by its increasing " thinness," its more and more 
exclusive cultivation of epistemology. Hegel, as William 
James admitted, has "thickness" (as Eechner has thick- 
ness), but his followers have persisted in following the very 
path he warned them off — the narrow way of abstract in- 
tellectualism that leadeth to destruction in the barren Abso- 
lute. They have tried — as if their master, and Kant 
before him, had lived in vain — they have tried to build 
up a universe out of those very categories of the under- 
standing which Hegel himself had told them were unfruit- 
ful. They have stopped at the Third Book of his Logic, 
where all the categories are rounded up in the Absolute 
Idea, and have not pursued the game of the Triple Dialectic 
any further. It does not seem to have occurred to them 
that in the Logic Hegel is only getting into his stride, 
and that, if they are to play the game, they must go on 
till Nature and Thought together are rounded up in the 
Absolute Spirit which is God. An Absolute as thick, as 
concrete as the universe itself. Thought itself, which in 
Hegel's hands is alive and kicking, becomes sterile and mo- 
tionless under their treatment. 38 

Now it may turn out that there is no such thing as 
Spirit ; or that if there is it cannot play the all-embracing 
part assigned to it. But, anyhow, Hegel's assumption of 
Spirit made all the difference to the successful working of 
his Dialectic ; whereas his followers distrust the Dialectic, 



202 A DEFENCE OE IDEALISM 

and their tendency has been to drop it, and to drop the as- 
sumption in the interests of what they believe to be a 
sounder logic. And it is at least a question whether their 
logic, though far simpler, is really sounder. Hegel's 
" thought-relations," by whatever unsafe a priori process 
he arrived at them, really did relate, because they are 
themselves related, because they are moments in the mani- 
festation of Spirit, links between its immanent and trans- 
cendent life. His followers have turned them into logical 
abstractions, and abstractions are hard, unyielding things, 
unsuited to the rhythmic and elastic play of Spirit. And 
so, having stopped short where the Hegelian plot is thinnest 
(though Hegel's " Logic " is still considerably thicker than, 
say, Mr. Bradley's), they fall an easy prey to any phi- 
losophy that takes account of such things as nature, and 
life, and will, and sense, and passion, and moral behaviour. 
Their organic whole is not a whole, and cannot by any 
manipulation of the terms be made to do duty for the 
whole. Their " internal relations " are so far from being 
internal that at the first touch of analysis they seem to 
fall away from the " things " they are supposed to consti- 
tute, or at any rate to hold together. Their unity is not a 
real unity, for the simple reason that the supreme and ulti- 
mate form of it, their Absolute, is not a real Absolute. 

As abstractions, " thought-relations " are specially vul- 
nerable to Analytic Logic, which can be trusted to produce 
off its own bat as many more as may be wanted and to 
deal with them after their kind. When the monist asserts 
that all relations are grounded in the nature of their terms, 
he starts with a rash generalization ; and when he stakes all 
his hopes of his Absolute on the dilemma of the infinite 
regress which ensues, his Absolute is in a perilous state. 
The position is attackable from above and from below. 
You have only got to show him one relation, equally ab- 
stract, which is not grounded in the nature of its terms, 
and you have mined the very foundations of his dilemma. 



THE NEW EEALISM 203 

Or, if lie takes his stand on a relation that is so grounded, 
then, with the first step of his regress, he is again in the 
thin air of abstraction; and the superstructure of his 
dilemma is exposed to any opponent who presses on his 
attention some irreducibly uncontradictious definition of 
the terms. Thus the ingenious analyst " has " him either 
way. For it is clear that, if the relation is grounded in 
the terms, and the terms are irreducible, the relation itself 
is irreducible ; while, if the relation is not grounded in its 
terms, it is irreducible to begin with. And this irreduci- 
bility of the whole complex holds up his regress at the 
start. 

Yet, so far is Monism from being vanquished that this 
game of abstractions has one great and glorious advantage 
for the monist — two can play at it. And, as we shall see, 
it is a game at which ultimately the realist stands to lose. 

That both sides are dealing in abstractions is evident 
from the realist's theory of the monist's theory of " rela- 
tion." 

" Philosophers," Mr. Bertrand Eussell says (and by 
philosophers I think he means monists), "seem really to 
assume — though not so far as I know, explicitly — that re- 
lations never have more than two terms : and even such re- 
lations they reduce by force or guile to predication. 
Mathematicians, on the other hand, almost invariably speak 
of relations of many terms " (Principia Mathematica, 
p. 212) ; and Mr. Eussell both assumes, quite explicitly, 
and argues that a relation of many terms is incompatible 
with any monistic theory of relation. You would have 
thought that, the wider and more complex the ramification 
of any one relation, and the more terms you could rope into 
it, the more unity would triumph. But no, you have only 
to abstract your mind from the relation and fasten it on the 
terms to see at once that it is Pluralism that scores. And 
so it does, if you have given in to the proposition that a re- 
lation can exist apart from and independently of its terms. 



204 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

And when the realist has shown that this separateness 
and independence is found in the most intimate and sacred 
of all relations, the relation of subject and predicate, the 
conclusion is apparently forced on you that the game of 
Monistic Idealism is up. Idealism, seeking unity before 
all things, is supposed to have assumed faithfulness in the 
union of subject and predicate. Realism, on the look-out 
for plurality, finds, on the contrary, that subjects are 
polygamous and have many predicates, while there never 
was a predicate yet that could remain faithful to one sub- 
ject for very long. The rose is red ; but so is the dawn and 
so is Bardolph's nose. And, unless you adopt the realistic 
theory of universals, you are in danger of arguing that the 
nose and the rose are not red, because redness is not a rose 
nor a nose. In short, the relations of most subjects and 
most predicates are temporary and fortuitous, and their be- 
haviour, from the point of view of monism and monogamy, 
an open scandal. Therefore, the pluralist argues, you had 
much better agree with him that relations are irreducible 
and independent entities, and that so are their terms. 

But there is no reason why Monism should be assumed as 
banking on the permanence of these unions, except on the 
further assumption that it stands or falls by the theory of 
internal relations. // the relation of subject and predicate 
is grounded in their nature, clearly the relation must be 
permanent; subjects and predicates must not chop and 
change. 

Now, though the statements of certain monists may 
have given some grounds for the assumption, it is not justi- 
fied by Monism itself. Monism does not stand or fall by 
the doctrine of internal relations. It stands or falls by the 
dilemma. 

That is to say, it stands or falls by the dilemma involved 
in the opposite theory, the realistic theory of external rela- 
tions ; or rather, by the dilemma inherent in the very idea 
of the thing and its relations. No predicament, short of 



THE NEW KEALISM 205 

the double dilemma, will really serve. Given the double 
dilemma, you are confronted with the plain illusion of all 
relative existence. 

In chapter ii, page 21, of Mr. Bradley's Appearance and 
Reality you will find Mr. Russell's argument against the 
doctrine of internal relations turned in precisely the same 
way, with precisely the same plausibility against the doc- 
trine of external relations. 

Thus, even at this apparently profitless game of abstrac- 
tions, the monist scores; seeing that the double dilemma, 
so advantageous to him, is disastrous to his opponent. Eor 
Eealism stands or falls by its freedom from dilemmas and 
from contradictions. 

So what are we to say when on one page of the Princi- 
pia Mathematica we read : " The whole doctrine of sub- 
ject and predicate ... is radically false and must be 
abandoned," and on another page, in that chapter iv to 
which the context refers us for the definition of " thing " : 
" Every term " (which is here equivalent to " every 
thing") "to begin with is a logical subject. . . . Again, 
every term is immutable and indestructible. What a term 
is, it is and no change can be conceived in it which would 
not destroy its identity and make it another term." So 
that, as some terms, on Mr. Russell's admission, are also 
predicates, every term must be what it isn't, contrary to 
the definition. 

If a monist had made a statement like that he would 
never have heard the last of it. And there is no reason 
why he should not have made it, since the contradiction in- 
volved would help him rather than not. But it is very far 
from helping Mr. Russell. 

And if we go on we shall find him involved in contra- 
dictions that would make the fortune of a monist. Thus : 

" We shall say that Socrates is human is a proposition having 
only one term; of the remaining components of the proposition 
one is a verb, the other is a predicate." 



206 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

It is implied, then, that a predicate is not a term; yet 
in the preceding paragraph, terms are divided into 
" things " and " concepts/' and concepts into adjectives, 
or " predicates," and relations or verbs. There may be 
terms that are not predicates, bnt how on earth can there 
be any predicate that is not a term ? 

" Predicates, then, are concepts other than verbs, which occur 
in propositions having only one term or subject." 

For if two terms were allowed in subject-predicate propo- 
sitions there would be unity in difference. Therefore, con- 
trary to the definition, it is not to be. 

Again : 

"When a man occurs in a proposition (e.g. I met a man in 
the street) the proposition is not about the concept a man but 
about something quite different — some actual biped, denoted 
by the concept. Thus concepts of this kind have meaning in a 
non-psychological sense : And in this sense when we say, ' This 
is a man ' we are making a proposition in which a concept is in 
some sense attached to what is not a concept." 

We are, that is to say, involved in what, on a theory of 
immutable and indestructible terms, is a contradiction, but 
is not a contradiction on any other theory. 

But, after all, the analyst has some uneasiness about this 
most crucial question of the subject-predicate relation. 

" If we were right in holding that ' Socrates is human ' is a 
proposition having only one term, the is in this proposition 
cannot express a relation in the ordinary sense. In fact sub- 
ject-predicate propositions are distinguished by just this non- 
relational character." 

You see the realist's implacable hostility to the subject- 
predicate relation? Just because in it there lurks a 
secret danger to his Pluralism. Still, Mr. Russell is a 
most honest and honourable logician, and he owns very 
handsomely that 



THE NEW REALISM 207 

"nevertheless, a relation between Socrates and humanity is 
certainly implied, and it is very difficult to conceive the propo- 
sition as expressing no relation at all. We may perhaps say 
that it is a relation, although it is distinguished from other 
relations in that it does not permit itself to be regarded as an 
assertion concerning either of its terms indifferently, but only 
as an assertion concerning the referent." 

That is to say, " humanity " is not exemplified in Socra- 
tes, otherwise it would be implicated as a term. 

"But it is so hard to know what is meant by relation, that 
the whole question is in danger of becoming purely verbal." 
(Principia Mathematical p. 49.) 

Hard, indeed, if you are a pluralistic realist bent on 
eliminating unity at all costs. 

One more admission of the analyst, a propos, this time, 
of organic unities, the existence of which he strenuously 
denies. 

"It is said that analysis is falsification, that the complex is 
not equivalent to the sum of its constituents and is changed 
when it is analysed into these. In this doctrine . . . there is a 
measure of truth when what is to be analysed is a unity. A 
proposition has a certain indefinable unity, in virtue of which 
it is an assertion ; and this is so completely lost by analysis that 
no enunciation of constituents will restore it, even though itself 
be mentioned as a constituent. There is, it must be confessed, 
a grave logical difficulty in this fact, for it is difficult not to 
believe that a whole must be constituted by its constituents." 

He comforts himself with the reflection that 

" for us, however, it is sufficient to observe that all unities are 
propositions or propositional functions, and that, consequently, 
nothing that exists is a unity." (Ibid. p. 467.) 

It is, the monist may observe, not sufficient for him; 
and he would point out that the consequence is not so 
rigorous as Mr. Eussell seems to think. 

Also, I think he would suggest that the whole question of 



208 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

how Knowledge is possible hangs on this admitted unity 
of the proposition and propositional function. How does 
the amazing multiplicity of the real outside universe get 
itself expressed in propositions or in propositional func- 
tions, if, in that universe, there is no unity to correspond ? 
If the pluralist is allowed to assume that every logical 
atom discoverable by his atomistic logic tallies with or 
constitutes an atom there, why may not the monist just as 
well assume his logical unity to be there also ? 

And to the whole atomistic critique he might reply : All 
this is mere analysis ; and you yourself admit that " analy- 
sis of a whole is in some measure falsification." Is it 
likely, then, that, after the damage you have inflicted on 
my universe, I shall not hold you tight to that admission 
and to all that it implies ? If the parts of the whole are 
really its parts, if they are, as you admit, presupposed in 
it, " in a sense " in which it is not presupposed in them — 
for I grant you that " in a sense " the whole is a " new " 
thing, though not that it is ever a new " single term," ex- 
cept provisionally, as part or as one of many aggregates in 
a larger whole — then the relation of the whole to its parts 
will still be more intimate, more vital, than anything that 
analysis can show; and it is precisely this intimacy and 
vitality that analysis destroys. And surely it is this 
intimacy and vitality that logic itself discerns and acknowl- 
edges when it is driven to the conclusion that, in the last 
analysis, the analysis of collections, when the whole is only 
completely specified by its parts, the relation is peculiar 
and undefinable ? So peculiar and undefinable that, when 
the precious collection consists of but a single term, we are 
still compelled to think of that term as contained in a 
whole. Does it not look as if the whole were as necessary 
to the part as the parts are to the whole ? 

As for your arguments drawn from multiple relations, 
from propositions containing many more terms than two, 
and from many subjects with one predicate and many 



THE NEW REALISM 209 

predicates with one subject, I do not see that they neces- 
sarily make more for your ultimate Pluralism than for 
my ultimate Monism. I am not obliged to look for my 
unity anywhere short of the Absolute. Therefore it really 
does not matter to me how many terms a proposition con- 
tains, nor how you distribute and arrange the relations of 
subject and predicate. 

Analytic Logic, then, has not entirely smashed up even 
his system of abstract Thought-relations. But supposing 
that it had, the monist's only legitimate concern is not ab- 
stract relativity but concrete relatedness, the bare fact 
that the universe is contextual, that all things in it, that 
is to say, all things within the range of immediate percep- 
tion and of logical induction and deduction, are in some 
way connected, interdependent and related. His claim 
that each is related to the Absolute in one way, the way of 
the appearance to the reality, is a just claim. The further 
claim that they should all be related to each other in one 
way is the suicidal mania of Monism. It is to ignore their 
place in the relation. It is to tear them from the con- 
text in which they appear and are known, in which we are 
obliged to perceive them and to think them ; it is to isolate 
them and thus turn them into abstractions which at once 
become the prey of Analytic Logic. 

For every abstraction set up within the sphere of the re- 
lated is a little tin-pot absolute. 

The monist is even worse off with his claim that every 
lesser whole should have the clear, illuminating, pene- 
trating, truthful quality of the Whole. Eor this is to 
create a series of little tin-can wholes, which are none the 
less isolated, and none the less abstract for being set up in- 
side the relation. 

Nevertheless, since two can play at this game, it is with 
a plurality of such little tin-pot absolutes and such little 
tin-can wholes that the New Eealism builds up its uni- 



210 A DEFENCE OE IDEALISM 

verse. Or, to be strictly correct, it is such a universe of 
little tin-can wholes and little tin-pot absolutes that it 
claims to have discovered. 

Now, there is no reason why the monist (when he is not 
a Subjective Idealist) should not take a hand in this game 
of discovery, too. There is, in fact, every reason why he 
should claim to have discovered, for his part, a universe 
where nothing is isolated, nothing is absolute, and where 
nothing is contingent and conditional that is not related in 
some way to something other than itself. He would 
do well to accept and acknowledge the frank plurality of 
such a universe, instead of patching up little unities and 
wholenesses inside it where unity and wholeness are not, 
and creating little infinite regressions and supererogatory 
dilemmas for himself as he goes along. 

Then, in the face of the infinite regression — the end- 
less chain of contingencies — that he finds and does not 
create, he has every reason to plead that in such a universe 
there is no moment of self -subsistence ; that it escapes, 
from moment to moment, the diamond-net of Thought ; 
that terms should be every bit as dependent on relations 
as relations are on terms ; and that this relativity is proved 
rather than disproved by the pluralisms ability to play 
ducks and drakes with subjects and predicates. He will 
maintain that " this is a purely spectacular universe," in 
the sense that it has every appearance of being an appear- 
ance rather than a spontaneous and automatic reality; 
that, in short, its relativity cries aloud for the Absolute 
and its multiplicity for unity. He will define his rich 
and concrete Absolute as that which is not related to any- 
thing other than itself. 

Such an Absolute can only not u enter into relations " 
because it is all relations and all terms, and is more than 
the sum of all terms and all relations. Only such a Whole 
is absolute, and only such an Absolute is the whole. 

Thought is perhaps the thinnest and the poorest pred- 



THE NEW KEALISM 211 

icate of this Ding-an-sich. It is quite clear that such an 
Absolute escapes the net of thought by so much as it is 
more than thought. 

Realists, will, of course, deride the suggestion that it 
escapes the net of Analytic Logic by so much. Eor, in 
one sense, it does not escape. Logic can dislocate and lay 
out in fragments the whole world of its appearances ; and I 
confess I do not see how the monist is to stick it together 
again with thought-relations, or to round it up into one 
whole of Thought. He cannot conjure the universe out of 
such feeble propositions as that Thought is unity and 
Unity is thought, or that Absolute Spirit is Thought be- 
cause Thought thinks it. For on the same showing a 
pluralistic universe would be a universe of thought. The 
monist's only chance is to abandon his Epistemology ; even 
if the alternative has to bear the dreadful and dishonoured 
name of Spiritualism. 



Ill 

But even with the complete abandonment of Episte- 
mology, the monist's position is untenable if the New 
Eealism can make good its claim at all the other points 
along its admirably defended line. If, that is to say, it 
can prove its own hypothesis of the independent, self-sub- 
sistent reality of the world as external to any and every 
form of consciousness. For that hypothesis, if made 
good, rules out his as, to say the least of it, superfluous. 

Why look behind the veil of appearances for ultimate 
reality when there isn't any veil, when realities as ulti- 
mate as you are ever likely to get are spread out under 
your nose, and absolute being is planted out all round you 
in embarrassing quantities ? 

But are the foundations of Atomistic Realism, after all, 
so very sure ? 

It is just possible it may prove, after all, more vulner- 
able than it looks. For, to begin with, it gains an im- 
mense advantage from the fact that, in spite of the in- 
fluence of Mr. Bertrand Russell, it is not a one-man phi- 
losophy as Hegelianism and Kantianism were one-man 
philosophies. It is difficult to bring criticism to bear on a 
theory that is not yet built up into a system. You know 
where you are in the Critique of Pure Reason by 
merely looking at the headings of the Parts and Sections. 
You can find your way from Kant's basement, through 
all his floors, to his Transcendental attic by a process as 
simple as going upstairs. But the ISTew Realists, though 
no doubt they all have the same architectural plan in their 
heads, are not yet housed under one roof. The American 
" Symposium of Six " suggests a colony of Young Men's 

212 



THE NEW KEALISM 213 

Christian Association Huts rather than a solidly built and 
many-storied house of thought. The stain is not yet dry 
on their walls, and the corrugated iron is very new. So 
far, not even the mathematical philosophy of Mr. Bertrand 
Russell is completely systematized. The timid monist, 
wandering among their scattered habitations, never knows 
what disaster may lurk for him behind some door or win- 
dow. The critic of the New Realism has to arrange it 
according to his own plan, and it is open to any new realist 
to complain that his arrangement is wrong. 

But at any rate it falls into two main divisions: its 
Critique and its Construction. 

It must be owned that its critique has accomplished 
something, if not quite all that it set out to do. It has 
completely shattered Subjective Idealism or Solipsism. 
Not a very difficult or a much-needed enterprise; and its 
particular success would be hardly worth mentioning but 
for our new realists' very evident and very naif belief that 
certain arguments fatal to Subjective Idealism are equally 
destructive to idealisms that are not subjective. 

It has destroyed a great deal of the abstract Epistemology 
that superseded Hegelianism, and it is hardly likely that 
there will ever be any return of Idealism in precisely that 
form. It may even be conceded that in all probability 
there will be no return of Idealism at all for another gener- 
ation, unless the excesses of the realists produce a violent 
reaction. It has, in short, swept away so much old rubbish 
that any future Idealism must reap the benefit of the space 
cleared for it. 

Its constructive half lends itself to five subdivisions: 
The Organon, or Atomistic Logic; the Mathematical 
Foundations; the Theory of Space and Time, Matter and 
Motion; the Theory of Universals; the Theory of Sense- 
Perception. 

For reasons which will appear I shall consider these in 
their reverse order. I do not think this is taking an unfair 



214 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

advantage of a philosophy which has not yet got itself sys- 
tematized ; since the new realists have declared their posi- 
tion to be impregnable at all points. In justice to them, 
however, it should be remembered that their theory of 
sense-perception rests on the mathematical foundations, 
which, again, rest on their Atomistic Logic. Hence the 
impregnability. 

It must be borne in mind that Atomistic Logic, the bed- 
rock of the entire philosophy, is purely formal. 

Now, since the mathematical foundations are pure, and 
sense-perception admittedly is not, is it impertinent to ask 
how the one can be based upon the other ? Mind is not 
more different from " matter " than mathematical points 
are from a point perceived in an extended surface, let 
alone that they are not and cannot be perceived at all. 
Neither are they the causes of sense-perception. If any- 
thing is a " cause " in the external world it is the be- 
haviour of the ultimate constituents of matter in " pub- 
lic " space. And it is difficult to see how mathematical 
space in its purity and absoluteness can be in any sense a 
condition of the behaviour of matter. Further, on the 
theory, there has to be, in any case, an adjustment of 
" private " spaces to " public " space. Surely this is 
pretty active and constructive work on the part of a per- 
ceiver who, on the theory, is supposed to be a passive 
spectator of ready-made realities outside himself ? 

Again, if all atomistic realities, even when they are re- 
lations, are such very absolute, and, ontologically speaking, 
self-repellent entities, it is difficult to conceive how they 
come together in one undivided act of perception. 

The realist will, no doubt, say that they come together 
because they are together, and that they are never " in " 
perception at all ; so let us put the problem in another form : 
How are they in their absoluteness and plurality related 
to that single and undivided act? When, on the theory, 
the relation of these relations is itself an outside entity? 



THE NEW REALISM 215 

In vain the realist decentralizes the entire performance. 
He has got his problem at the periphery instead of at the 
centre, that is all. 

We know that his is not " naif realism/' like the realism 
of the bonhomme Reid. It is, indeed, realism of the most 
highly sophisticated sort. But all its sophistications do 
not disguise the essential naivete and difficulty of its prob- 
lem. Things aren't as easy as all that. The New Eealism 
leaves that problem precisely where the old Eealism left 
it, for Idealism to solve as best it can. 

Let it not be supposed that my monist is a " naif " 
idealist: he does distinguish between subjective halluci- 
nations and objective phenomena ; or, if the realist likes, be- 
tween subjective and objective realities. But this dis- 
tinction is, for the moment, beside the point. We are deal- 
ing now with objective realities — to give them their cour- 
tesy title — with independent, outside things ; with the 
carpet which exists in the room, and the room which exists 
in space, whether I (or my neighbour for that matter) 
are or are not in the room beholding these existences. The 
new realist is mistaken if he imagines that any idealist, 
who is not also a solipsist, supposes for one moment that 
these appearances cease by his absence and are revived 
again by his presence. What he does suppose is that, if 
all sense-perceptions changed or ceased, all sensible quali- 
ties would change or cease also, and that if his ultimate and 
absolute Reality, which he calls absolute Consciousness or 
Thought or Spirit, were to cease, the whole universe of its 
appearances would cease with it. But as, on his theory, 
he cannot conceive of it as ceasing, the question has no 
more significance for him than for the realist. That is to 
say, on his theory, the universe will not and cannot abate 
one pulse of the energies, one atom, or one shade of the 
qualities that for the realist constitute its claim to be con- 
sidered real, until it or any one of its essential constitu- 
ents are annihilated. Idealism does no violence to the 



216 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

dignity and decency of science, or to the plain man's sense 
of reality. It leaves all these matters precisely where they 
were. 

But what does Realism do ? 

It divides what for science and the plain man's sense 
were never yet divided. It joins what for them were 
never yet joined. It talks about irreducibles and unde- 
finables where science and the plain man see palpable uni- 
ties and relations. It gives to the abstractions of its own 
logic a reality as august and far more permanent than the 
solar system. It perpetuates the old fallacy of arguing 
that what is outside a human body is outside all conscious- 
ness, and that what is inside human consciousness is there- 
fore inside the human brain. It swears by Psycho-phys- 
ical Parallelism; yet it regards consciousness as a mys- 
terious and unnecessary spectator of external events, a 
spectator who only departs from the purely passive role to 
manufacture " tertiary " psychic qualities which have no 
physical parallel. 

Still, let us suppose that it gets its backing from the 
higher mathematics and that it is irrefutably true. 

Philosophy is then in an even worse position than it 
was before Kant; faced with a universe of realities of 
which an infinite number are harder and more irreducible 
than brickbats, utterly different from and independent of 
consciousness; a universe which has contrived to exist by 
itself for infinite ages without being known, and super- 
latively indifferent as to whether it ever is known or not ; 
which, at some moment of finite time, is suddenly con- 
fronted with an infinite crowd of finite knowers, utterly 
unnecessary to its existence, utterly mysterious in their 
origin, yet demanding an origin by reason of their finite- 
ness. 

The fact of Knowledge becomes once more the intract- 
able problem of philosophy, with no hope of tackling it, as 
Kant tried to tackle it, at the knowing end. It is as if 



THE NEW EEALISM 217 

Kant had been shut up with Wolf in Wolf's library, and 
had gone to sleep there with nobody to wake him from his 
dogmatic slumber. When the new realist in his realism 
says that Kant's slumbers, if everlastingly prolonged, 
would have been no misfortune for the human race, since 
Idealism has had no effect on physical or mental science, 
he is confusing physical and mental science with phi- 
losophy. It may be doubted whether the Realism of the 
twentieth century is going to have any effect on physical 
and mental science either, seeing that these have hitherto 
managed to get on very well without it; whereas Eealism 
owes much of its alleged security to the support it professes 
to receive from physics and applied mathematics. 

But, before considering its security, we must look closer 
at its treatment of the problem of immediate perception. 

It is no longer Berkeley's question of how realities, hard 
as brickbats, contrive to penetrate from an outside world 
into an inside consciousness which is tenuous and tender ; 
since on the theory they do not penetrate into conscious- 
ness at all. 

Nor is it Kant's question of how synthetic judgments are 
a priori possible, since it is not for judgment to make any 
synthesis at all, but only to look on and constater. So far 
as there is any synthesis at all, the synthesis is performed 
with efficiency by realities themselves. 

Now, unless we remember that this theory has a high 
mathematical backing, this part of it looks almost too 
simple and easy to be true. And we must admit that there 
is something fascinating and even plausible in its sim- 
plicity and easiness. It also looks (stated thus without 
reference to the higher mathematics) as if it were a ques- 
tion-begging theory. Still, it would be unfair to press 
that point, as idealists may claim an equal right to isolate 
a theory for observation. 

But the realist is dodging the issue when he argues that 
the existence of hallucinations — of red carpets in con- 



218 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

sciousness that are not in the room — is no objection to his 
theory. It is an objection, as we shall see, and a fairly 
formidable objection, but it is not the crucial one. Hal- 
lucinations, on any theory, may be supposed to arise from 
a flaw or a kink in the apparatus of perception; from 
something, that is to say, abnormal. But the true crux is 
the normal and permanent memory image, the faithful 
reproduction of the spectacle that arises as the spectator's 
subjective response to the stimulus of those nerve and 
brain cells that were associated so mysteriously with his 
uninterrupted view of the original performance. The 
realist cannot say that this repetition of the spectacle is 
taking place in public space, nor in that private space 
which is adjustable to public space. 39 Red carpets are in 
his consciousness now, at any rate ; that is to say, they are 
subjective in the sense that his memories are not my memo- 
ries or anybody else's memories. But, though subjective, 
they are spatial, they are extended, and they are red. To 
be spatial, then, to be extended, to be red, are not hall- 
marks attaching to things that exist only outside con- 
sciousness. They are, after all, properties also of things 
that arise in consciousness. 

I think the new realist can hardly argue that memories 
arise anywhere else. But if he does, he will get an infinite 
regressus of outside simulacra and no genuine memory 
at all. Genuine memory should, one would imagine, be 
saturated with subjectivity, and in the experience of most 
of us genuine memory is. I do not ask him how he dis- 
tinguishes between the memory of the spectacle and the 
spectacle itself; he distinguishes precisely as the idealist 
distinguishes, by the difference of the complexes in which 
each occur; for one thing, he distinguishes by the very 
saturation which he ignores as being of the essence of 
memory. But I do ask him how he reconciles the fact 
of their common share in all so-called primary and second- 
ary qualities with his theory that these qualities only 



THE NEW EEALISM 219 

exist independently of consciousness and outside it. 

This objection cannot be met by simply saying that the 
original sense-data, their images in memory, and what he 
may call dream-spectacles and hallucinations, are all 
equally realities, but of different orders. It is their like- 
ness and not their unlikeness that is the problem. 

Hallucinations are important. In psychology, over 
and over again, abnormal occurrences have been our guides 
to the laws and the significance of normal behaviour. Hal- 
lucinations, the new realist says, can be referred entirely 
to some kink or flaw in the apparatus of perception. The 
apparatus of perception can then produce of its own 
initiative a very tolerable imitation of reality; a power 
which it really ought not to have if the realist's account 
of perception is the true one. Still, dream-consciousness 
can do as much or more ; and in neither case is perception 
of a real outside object involved. 

But take hallucinations of the lesser sort, the temporary 
distortions and duplications of perception which we are 
all familiar with — perception, mind you, of a real outside 
object. These also are due to some kink or maladjust- 
ment of the apparatus — easily corrected, the new realist 
says, by readjustment or by reference to the real object. 
The error is in the false judgment of the perceiver. No 
doubt; but the possibility of correction is really not the 
point. The point is that the apparatus is important. We 
have here not the simple affair of spectator and spectacle 
that Eealism supposes. There is a go-between, a medium. 
And the medium can distort ; it can duplicate. 

We would not be aware that there was a medium if it 
were not for its occasional aberrations. And its abnormal 
behaviour is the clue to its normal functions. 

The medium, then, distorts or duplicates — what ? The 
realist says, Not the real object. An image of the object ? 
Eealism has no use for images in immediate perception ; it 
has ruled them sternly out. The appearance of the object, 



220 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

then ? Realism says that in perception the appearance is 
the reality. Agree that it is the apparatus, the medium 
itself, that is duplicated or distorted, and we are where we 
were before. Perception is still as much the thrall of its 
apparatus as of its object. If its duplicate — for the ex- 
periments or accidents which yield duplicates amount to 
its duplication, and I am giving Realism the benefit of any 
doubt there may be on this point — if the duplication of 
the medium can make one perceiver perceive two objects; 
and if its distortion can make him perceive the real object 
as if it were distorted ; if its correct adjustment is essential 
to his correct perception of the object, it is clear that his per- 
ception of objects, correct or incorrect, is not precisely 
what you might call immediate. How can he then be 
sure — as cock-sure as the realist is — that he is perceiv- 
ing a reality and not an appearance ? 

And when we consider the pure sense-data, those second- 
ary qualities which Eealism declares to be, not warm, 
intimate sensations, but objects of sensation, planted out, 
and no more at home in consciousness than the north pole 
is, the old problems turn up again as persistently as if the 
~New Realism had never arisen to solve them. 

For if, disregarding the apparatus of perception, we 
take the New Realism's primary, secondary, and tertiary 
qualities as simply as it would have us take them, we shall 
not find the tertiary qualities, which it admits to be sub- 
jective, divided off from the secondary or objective ones as 
sharply as we should expect on a theory which distin- 
guishes between realities dependent on consciousness and 
realities not so dependent. 

On the contrary, starting with the tertiary qualities and 
working outwards from the subjective centre, we pass 
through a reaction zone of tertiary qualities merging into 
secondary, in a gradation of shades so subtle as to defy 
the arbitrary division that Realism has set up. The 
aesthetic feelings, wonder, admiration and awe, the passions 



THE NEW KEALISM 221 

and emotions, love, desire, fear, pleasure and displeasure, 
and disgust are not qualities that Bealism would dream of 
planting out in the objects that excite them; and it re- 
quires some stretch of imagination on Idealism's part to 
realize sound and colour, hardness and heaviness as sense- 
data rather than as sensations. And it requires a bigger 
stretch still to plant out tastes and odours in the particles 
of matter that excite them. 

But what about heat and cold ? Supposing the idealist 
agrees that it is the fire that is hot and the air that is 
cold, and not the idealist. Then, when by imperceptible 
gradations the fire grows hotter and hotter, and the air 
colder and colder, and pain is his reaction to the higher in- 
tensities of the same stimulus, is he to plant out the pain 
into the fire and the air ? I suppose the realist will say 
he need plant it out no farther than his own body ; but even 
that is too far for the intimately subjective thing that 
pain seems to be. Besides, you have now left it unsettled 
whether the heat is in the fire or in his body. If the new 
realist says that, obviously, it is in both, then how about 
the pain ? 

How are you to distinguish as secondary and tertiary 
between the heat that is outside consciousness, and inde- 
pendent of it, and the pain which is in consciousness, which 
without consciousness would not and could not be ? 

And you can take all the secondary qualities and in- 
crease their intensity with the same result. Intense light 
and sound, taste and odour will bring about violent re- 
actions, your objective secondary sensations merging into 
subjective tertiary agony. 

What is more, your sensation of primary qualities will 
behave in the same way. Increase the heaviness of your 
suit-case, or the impetus of your contact with the table, 
and heaviness and hardness will pass into sensations that 
are not sense-data at all as the realist defines them. The 
problem is not affected by the consideration that in all 



222 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

these instances (notably in that of the suit-case and collid- 
ing table) your body is the medium of the reaction. 
Eealism cannot get over the damning fact that somehow, at 
some point, the transition from primary or secondary, to 
tertiary, from outside consciousness to inside conscious- 
ness, has been made. 

Eealism allows for the transition from secondary to pri- 
mary qualities by its theory that extension is coloured and 
can be perceived as a sense-datum. What it refuses to 
admit, and cannot account for, on any theory (either of 
Psycho-physical Parallelism or of reality independent of 
consciousness), is that all these unbroken transitions taken 
together constitute a very considerable haul for conscious- 
ness; while the performance is fairly explicable if we 
suppose that consciousness takes over the whole show. 

We must now consider the realist's doctrine of univer- 
sals, when it will be evident that there was good reason 
for taking his theory of sense-perception first. From their 
place in the logical programme of Eealism it might be sup- 
posed that the theory of sense-perception followed from 
the doctrine of universals, as the doctrine of universals 
followed from the atomistic logic. But the consequences 
are the other way about. (Thus in the chapter on " The 
World of Universals " in Mr. Bertrand Eussell's Prob- 
lems of Philosophy, you find the theory of sense-percep- 
tion relied on to support the theory of the independent 
existence of a relation which is a universal.) 

It is true that Eealism finds its universals and does not 
create them. It is also true that if its universals did not 
exist it would have had to invent them. Without them its 
theory of sense-perception will not hang together for a 
moment. For, assume a consciousness that brings no 
bridges with it, whose sole business is to find and to con- 
stater, there can be no logical passage from one atom of 
reality to another. Perception of outside reals cries aloud 



THE NEW KEALISM 223 

for conception of outside reals in order to make both mem- 
ory associations and judgments possible. So the one is 
used to bolster up the other. 

To constater is impossible without concepts. And con- 
cepts must be universals in order to ensure that the reality 
perceived at this moment and in this space is the same 
reality which was perceived the moment before, or at any 
period of time before, or in another space, supposing it 
to have changed its position. 

The universal, therefore, must be out of time and out 
of space. It is that which has the same meaning in all 
contexts in which it occurs. 

Universals thus serve as standards or tests of the iden- 
tity of reals ; they are Plato's " patterns laid up in 
heaven." 

Now I think Idealism ought to acknowledge that it has 
no grounds for quarrelling with the New Realism here. 
It ought rather to be grateful to it for restoring universals 
to their ancient place of freedom and purity and splendour. 
There is something about a universal that has always pro- 
voked the derision of the playful empiricist. Bishop 
Berkeley thought there was something downright funny 
about a triangle that was neither oblique nor rectangle nor 
equilateral nor equicrural nor scalenon, but " all and none 
of these at once." 

But it remained for M. Anatole France to extract the 
full delicious flavour of its humour. According to the 
fallen angel Nectaire in his Discours sur Vhistoire uni- 
verselle de Bossuet, there were only two Schools of School- 
men : " L'un des camps soutenait qu'avant qu'il j eut 
des pommes il y avait la Pomme. qu'avant qu'il y eut 
des papegais, il y avait le Papegai ; qu'avant qu'il y eut 
des moines paillards et gourmands il y avait le Moine, la 
Paillardise et la Gourmandise; qu'avant qu'il y eut des 
pieds et des culs en ce monde, le Coup de pied au cul 
residait de toute eternite dans le sein de Dieu. L'autre 



224 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

camp repondit que, au contraire . . . le coup de pied au 
cul n'exista qu'apres avoir ete dument donne et recu" 
(" Revoke des Anges "). 

Now the New Realism certainly saves its universals 
from this ridiculous predicament. There can be no ques- 
tion of a kick in the ribs dwelling to all eternity in the 
bosom of the Absolute ; because, for the new realist, there 
is no Absolute and no bosom. The universal kick in the 
ribs is itself an absolute ; and of its dwelling nothing can 
be said but that it is not in consciousness, and not in space 
or time. And of universals out of their context nothing 
can be said but that they are realities. 

But observe that the peculiar outsideness of their real- 
ity, their independence on consciousness, hangs even more 
on the realist's theory of perception than his theory of 
perception hangs on it. Concepts, that is to say, have been 
brought into line with percepts. Like percepts, they are 
realities over against consciousness. On the theory, con- 
sciousness is simply confronted with them, and in their 
presence it ought to be able to do nothing but stare at them 
and constater. And each constatation is a recognition. 

So that, in order to constater, it has need of another uni- 
versal, confronted with which it can do no more than 
recognize and constater; and so on, in as beautiful an 
infinite regress as ever delighted the heart of Mr. Bradley. 

There is only one way in which to arrest that infinite 
regress at the start, and make the universals do the logical 
work required of them ; and that is, not to drag them down 
from their high place in heaven, but to recognize that their 
heaven, the eternal Kingdom of these blessed ones, is 
within ; that they are, as Idealism should have always held 
them to be, the work of Thought. They are none the less 
august, and none the less real, on that account. It is 
Thought that is exalted, and not they that are abased. 

The New Realism has revived a Realism very old, older 
than Scholasticism. It will have none of Aristotle's de- 



THE NEW KEALISM 225 

velopment of the Platonic philosophy. It refuses to admit 
that when Aristotle objected that the eiS>? were aUrdrfTa dtSia, 
eternalized sense-data, he was playing Plato's game for 
him. It will not see that when he said Ideas are not idle, 
they have hands and feet, he was again playing Plato's 
game and playing it better, getting a " move on " to the 
Ideas, so as to make them do the twofold work required of 
them, the work of logic and reality. 

And consider what happened later. After Scholastic 
Eealism, Nominalism, the inevitable reaction; after 
Nominalism, Conceptualism, the forerunner of modern 
Idealism. It is just possible that history may repeat it- 
self, and that after the New Eealism of the twentieth 
century 

But I am reminded that our Eealism is in a very dif- 
ferent case. It is so securely based on a mathematical 
discovery unknown to Aristotle, unknown to the Scholastics, 
unknown to the Idealists of the eighteenth and nineteenth 
centuries, that it defies avenging time. It follows (or 
should follow) in one unbroken logical sequence from 
Cantor's discovery of the behaviour of the Infinite, 
through the desired proof of the continuity of space and 
time, resolving their antinomies. It is thus linked up 
with the physical sciences. It has continued to do what 
Vitalism vainly attempted, " f aire tomber l'insurmontable 
barriere " and " rejoindre la science." 

" Eejoindre la science ! " To join hands with Science, 
physical science that has always looked askance at it, that 
will have none of its " thinness " — that (between its Ideal- 
isms) has always been Philosophy's passion and its dream; 
the passion and the dream which have produced Material- 
ism and Agnosticism, Psycho-physical Parallelism, and all 
the naif empiricisms and realisms. 

You would suppose, then, that the space and time it re- 
ceives from the mathematician, purged of all the contra- 



226 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

dictions and dilemmas of discreteness, would have some- 
thing in common with the space in which extension occurs 
and the time in which things happen. For the truth of 
Realism hangs, in the last resort, on the mathematical 
solution of the contradictions and dilemmas of space and 
time. Realists are never tired of reminding us that we 
have now got a continuous space and time to work with, 
and that idealists cannot any longer insist on the im- 
possibility of the passage from point to point and from 
instant to instant; for, as we have seen, in infinite space 
there are no next points, and in infinite time there are no 
next instants, and consequently no gaps. 

From an infinite series any number of members can be 
taken and to an infinite series any number can be added 
without either diminishing or increasing it. 

Does it not follow, then, that a finite series is not, in 
any sense, part of an infinite series ? 

This is a question for mathematicians, and for all I 
know it may be either so obvious or so irrelevant that no 
mathematician would dream of asking it. Therefore I 
suggest it with the utmost diffidence and some misgiving. 
It does seem to me to follow, not only from Cantor's law, but 
from the definition of part and whole, combined with the 
axiom, that there are no infinite wholes ; from the impos- 
sibility of arguing from finite to infinite; from the real- 
ist's assumption of the absoluteness of space and time, and 
the plurality of absolute spaces and of times; and from 
the atomistic theory of the intransigeant and mutually 
repellent character of absolute entities. 

And if it follows, the bearings on our problem would 
be very relevant indeed. For, consider. Pure space and 
pure time are continuous, in the sense that between any 
two points and any two instants there is an infinite num- 
ber of points and of instants ; nor is there any other sense 
in which they could be continuous. So that, in an infinite 
series there are no two consecutive points or instants. 



THE NEW KEALISM 227 

Now <c between any two points " is surely just as much 
a relation of finites as is the relation of two consecutive 
points ; and as such it has no business in an infinite series ; 
so that you cannot speak of an infinite number occurring 
between any two points. And from this it would seem to 
follow that an infinite series is not a series at all, and that 
there can be no infinite order of any sort. Yet, though a 
point has no magnitude, it has, or should have, position. 
But how can it have position in a series (or any other 
order) that isn't a series (or any other order) ; where, 
that is to say, there are no positions that do not presup- 
pose the space they are said to constitute ? 

So that we are back again in the dilemma of the infinite 
regress. If you say that the point that has position is 
the Euclidean point, and that the points in question do 
not have positions, but that they are positions, I do not see 
that that helps you out of the difficulty. Eor if points 
cannot have positions where there are no positions to have, 
neither can they be positions where positions cannot be. 
The contradiction is simply shifted from the discrete or 
consecutive continuity to the pointless point or position- 
less position. 

Again, a point, on any definition, has no magnitude; 
therefore it is indivisible ; therefore " between any two 
points," or any two instants, will mean between any two 
indivisibles. And between any two indivisibles there 
must be some hiatus which, perhaps, we cannot call spatial 
or temporal, since space and time are continuous, but which 
must surely be held to exist ; so that in space composed of 
an infinite number of points there must be an infinite num- 
ber of non-spatial gaps. And the same will hold good of 
time. And if this isn't discreteness, I do not know what 
is. It is also, by the axiom, continuity. 

It must be so, if these points and these instants are 
neither to overlap or coalesce, or otherwise behave like 
magnitudes. 



228 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

And, again, any two indivisibles thus separated will be 
finite. 

So that in the Infinite two fine and flourishing contra- 
dictions have broken out, making six in all: (1) the con- 
tradiction of the infinite regress; (2) the contradiction of 
the non-serial series ; ( 3 ) the contradiction of the position- 
less position; (4) the contradiction of the non-spatial 
spaces and non-temporal times (already considered) ; (5) 
the contradiction of discrete continuity; and (6) the con- 
tradiction of the finite infinite; contradictions which are 
only to be avoided by dilemmas. 

Lastly, on this system, perception of the world of Be- 
coming is an act of reporting, divisible into an infinite 
series of reports, corresponding to the infinite series of 
moments constituting the process of change. Each atom 
in the moving show of Becoming, is an absolute entity, re- 
ported as such. It follows there can be no justifiable antic- 
ipation of events; no reason why, of the connections and 
sequences reported, one should obtain rather than another. 

I have not seen any refutation of Mr. Bertrand Kus- 
sell's mathematical metaphysics, and I can only dimly 
imagine the lines it would be likely to take. But I think 
my idealistic monist, with his back against the wall, might 
put up some such defence as this. 

If my monist is right, he is better furnished with di- 
lemmas now than ever he was under his own ontological 
scheme. For if motion was a contradiction on the old 
theory of the infinitely discrete, rest is a contradiction on 
the new theory of the continuous infinite. For with this 
sort of continuity you can indeed go on; but you can 
never, never stop. 

Positionless position affords no rest for either Achilles 
or the tortoise. 

And with discrete continuity there can be neither mo- 
tion nor rest. What could an idealistic monist wish for 
more? 



THE NEW KEALISM 229 

And when it com.es to finite space his hope does not fail 
him. What about the mile-long line that contains no 
more points than the inch-long line? The thousandth 
part of the inch-long line that contains no fewer points 
than a thousand mile-long line ? Both, indeed, contain- 
ing an infinite number. It looks as if the finite contained 
infinity. 

But no — that would be too good to be true. The 
monist does not really want that seventh contradiction. 
His cup is already fairly running over. 

Now it may be said that, even supposing these contra- 
dictions and dilemmas were genuine and not solvable by 
Cantor's law, non-mathematical monists have no right to 
assume that they cannot be solved by mathematics in some 
way, probably by calculations involving the fourth dimen- 
sion. But, as the new mathematical logic does not stop at 
four, but provides an infinite number of dimensions, the 
monist may not unreasonably hope to reap a second crop of 
contradictions and dilemmas from these. For the series 
of the dimensions is apparently obtained by every term in 
the series of one dimension itself giving birth to a series, 
every term of which again gives birth to another series, and 
so on for ever and ever, a new dimension being generated 
with each series. But the whole process of generation has 
its rise in the series of one dimension, in which my monist 
was supposed to find his six fine contradictions ; each series 
therefore will bear within it some taint of the original in- 
fection. And, in any case, if no finite number of points is 
any part of an infinite series of points, mathematical logic 
itself apparently gives him the right to stick to it that no 
finite number of dimensions (as might be three), can be 
any part of an infinite series or order or arrangement or 
collection of dimensions. So that three-dimensional 
space will be no part of infinitely dimensional space. 
Thus, from the very start, he can catch sight of his contra- 
dictions of the non-serial series, the non-ordered order, the 



230 A DEFENCE OE IDEALISM 

non-collective collection, with the dilemma of the finite 
infinite ; and, on the far horizon of dilemmas, on all f onrs 
with his positionless positions, the non-dimensional di- 
mension. 

But suppose my monist does not reap his second crop 
of contradictions, or his first crop either. Suppose he 
really has no business to insist that " between any two 
points " in any series is a relation of finites. Suppose 
there are grave mathematical reasons (as for all I know 
there very well may be) why " between any two points " 
in an infinite series is to be held, contrary to all apparent 
reason, as a relation of infinites, without begging the 
question of the series and its infinity. Suppose there is 
no mathematical sense in which the discreteness he dis- 
covers is to be thought of, and that his harvest fails in 
consequence. Is he therefore obliged to abjure his 
Monism and his Idealism ? Kemember the unique raison 
d'etre of his strange passion for contradictions and di- 
lemmas. He does not wallow in contradiction for contra- 
diction's sake, out of sheer perversity. He desires that 
the contradiction may be solved. Therefore he flies to his 
Infinite and Absolute. 

In spite of Hegel and Mr. Bradley, he must have won- 
dered how in the world it was going to perform its con- 
juring trick. . Well, if the higher mathematics really do 
all that they are said to do, they will have shown him how. 

" Das Unbeschreibliche, 
Hier ist's gethan." 

They may pile universe on universe and multiply in- 
finities by infinity (on their own showing an impossible 
operation). He will hold to his Monism, maintaining, as 
I think he has every right to maintain, that these purely 
mathematical operations have every mark and sign of 
ideality, of being " the work of Thought," of some sort 



THE NEW EEALISM 231 

of a God who " geometrizes eternally." If the construc- 
tions are infinite in number, from the sheer monotony of 
the mathematical obsession, he gathers that their con- 
structor, their builder and maker is one. When pragma- 
tists have twitted him with the thinness and poorness of 
his ultimate principle he may have wondered how thought 
could be infinite and absolute. Now it has been proved 
to him that it is so. If challenged to show how the foun- 
dations of a material universe can be immaterial, he has 
only to refer his opponent to Mr. Bertrand Eussell's Prin- 
ciple Mathematica. 

Above all, he profits by the realist's happy thought of re- 
habilitating universals. 

For these primordial entities, whose serious and in- 
dubitable reality mathematical logic compels him to be- 
lieve in, on whose reality the material universe depends, 
are immaterial. He has only got to fetch them " in " 
from " outside " to prove that the unseen reality of every 
mortal and material thing is immaterial and immortal, 
having its habitation out of space, out of time. Not out 
of thought; for its presence there is the ground of all 
thinking, the reason why things are recognized and known. 
Really, universals are a priceless haul for the idealist. 
For they justify his distinction between appearance and 
reality. 

(If realists will revive Plato, they must abide by the 
consequences of his resurrection.) 

And when you have said that they are spaceless and 
timeless, formless and immaterial, they remain delight- 
fully undefined and undefinable. The least that can be 
said of them is that they are immaterial. The most that 
can be said of them is that they endure. 

For the New Eealism, after criticising Aristotle so 
severely for his handling of Plato, condescends to adopt 
his emendation of the doctrine of the Ideas. It very prop- 
erly refuses to see in them eternalized duplicates, patterns 



232 A DEFENCE OE IDEALISM 

of the things of sense, or any common " property " shared 
by things. Every thing, every quality and relation has 
its own universal ; and there are universals of unique and 
solitary things, when, clearly, there can be none to share. 
Eor the New Realism white things do not partake of 
whiteness ; the relation is not and cannot be that of whole 
and part, nor yet of possession as Plato maintained. 
Whiteness is not white. It is not the whiteness of white 
things : it is the whiteness, the universal etSo? of the whites. 
Now Realism does well in thus improving on the Platonic 
doctrine of ideas. You might suppose, from the impor- 
tant distinction that it makes, that it regards the relation 
as something incomparably more subtle, more intimate, 
and more strong. 

But, as a matter of fact, it does nothing of the kind. It 
makes the distinction, not that it may establish intimate 
relations which would argue a secret unity, but that it may 
put asunder the reality of whiteness from the reality of 
white, and bring pluralistic atomism into the world of 
the universals. 

I think that in this it has defeated the ends of logic, 
which are, after all, its own ends. Its failure is the 
monist's opportunity. 

The conception of that sacred communion in which 
alaOrjTa partook of etS>7 was Plato's solution of the everlast- 
ing problem; it was an attempt to escape from his own 
Dualism, the logical consequences of which he saw clearly. 
The New Realism, in resuscitating Plato, makes every- 
thing of his Dualism and nothing of his escape. Its in- 
terpretation of Plato is peculiar. It takes from Plato 
what suits its Pluralism, and everything that will not fit 
into the programme it dismisses as a poet's fancy or the 
agreeable jest of a literary diner-out. Surely Plato's 
desperate attempt to round up all the ideas in the one 
supreme Idea of the Good might have served as a reminder 



THE NEW KEALISM 233 

that it is easier to interpret him than to appreciate his 
drift? 

And Atomistic Logic has prepared the ground for the 
first idealist who comes along and resuscitates the Abso- 
lute. Its really great discovery — that there is necessarily 
a universal of unique and solitary cases — turns against 
Atomism from the moment that the idealist lays his hands 
on it and converts it to his own use. 

For by no logic can you get over the fact that things in 
this universe of ours have relations and that relations 
relate. If particulars are related, so are universals. 
Their atoms cannot be kept apart. They gather together 
to form logical molecules, which form bodies, which form 
worlds, which form the universe of thought. Because 
thought can analyse this universe into atoms again, it does 
not follow that its universe is not one. The fact that 
your logical atoms are free to enter many combinations is 
no disproof of their ideal or spiritual unity. You may 
be pleased to ignore the incurable tendency of atoms to 
form a universe ; but you do not destroy unity by calling 
it a collection ; though apparently you thus make Atomistic 
Logic an easier game to play. 

But only apparently. For when you insist, as Eealism 
insists, on taking the spectacular view of universals by 
divorcing their reality from the reality of thought, you 
have made it impossible to use them in your thinking 
with any spectacular effect. And when you do use them, 
it is as logical counters which have every appearance of 
being inside conventions rather than outside realities. 

And it will not only be their absoluteness and separate- 
ness that lands you in this impossibility of thinking. You 
might, indeed, get over that difficulty by saying that you do 
not think, you only look on at a spectacular process of 
thinking; and there every idealist who is not a solipsist 
would agree with you. But what, in Heaven's name, are 



234 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

realities, defined as independent of any and every thought, 
of any and every consciousness, doing in a process of think- 
ing which is nothing if not conscious \ What sort of spec- 
tacle will universals treated as independent realities pro- 
vide? Not only is whiteness not white, and a universal 
kick in the ribs not a kick in the ribs, but they have no 
content and no more conceivable relation (not even the 
relation of likeness) to white or to a kick in the ribs than 
they have to consciousness. 

The New Realism has provided another contradiction 
for the idealist to rejoice in — the unconceived and un- 
conceivable concept. 

And yet another. For there is a universal, both of 
every actual proposition and of every possible proposition. 
And the number of propositions is infinite. For there is 
a universal of everything that exists and has existed and 
will exist; and of everything that is and was and will be 
— from the infinite number of physical atoms to the in- 
finite number of numbers and of mathematical points and 
instants ; and about every one of these a true proposition 
may be made. And for every true proposition, made or 
unmade, there is a false proposition that denies its truth. 
Therefore there will be an infinite number of false propo- 
sitions denying the existence or the being of these things. 
It is also an axiom that from even one false proposition 
an infinity of consequences will follow ; and for every one 
of these consequences there is also a universal. There- 
fore, there will be an infinitely infinite number of univer- 
sals standing for an infinitely infinite number of lies, all 
equally exalted to the high and holy estate of reality; all, 
in fact, horribly real, ineradically planted out, since (on 
the theory), as concepts, they are, whether any irrelevant 
person comes along to make the propositions or not; all 
much more assured of immortality than any person. 

So that the realist's pluralistic universe is thick with 
the infinitely infinite numbers of the non-existent. Even 



THE NEW KEALISM 235 

allowing for the necessary distinction between being and 
existence, I do not see how reality can be claimed for these 
objects of conception if reality has any meaning. Yet 
real they are, since they endure in utter indifference as to 
whether there will ever be a conceiver to conceive them. 
The realist can't say : " Somebody's telling a lie." He 
can only say : " There's a lie. Somebody's looking at 
it." And the idealist may add to his collection of con- 
tradictions this infinity of unreal realities, which is worth 
all his other harvests put together. 

Contradictions are fatal to the realist who prides him- 
self on not having any. But, as we have seen, they are 
meat and drink to the idealist, who does not exalt them to 
the position of realities. He has no use for the things of 
sense eternalized; but he can take over the whole show of 
universals in a bunch, purified from all taint of the par- 
ticular and the finite. He can treat them as the mysteri- 
ous entities he needs to build up his universe. Like so 
many absolutes they are definable only by negation. They 
are not definable ontologically by their logical functions. 
They make known, but they themselves have no content by 
which they are known. They are not hnowers, they are 
not in any sense selves. Yet through their logical func- 
tion they serve as carriers of the invisible and impalpable 
secret of selfhood. 

All this is exceedingly important for Idealistic Mon- 
ism. 

The monist must have had moments of awful insight 
when he realized that the relation of whole and part was 
not quite equal to the strain he was putting on it. He 
must have been aware that a contradiction and a dilemma 
here would wreck him. But he has not got to stand or 
fall by that incompetent relation now that Bealism has 
restored universals to their ancient place and power. 
They have solved for him what must, if he had finished 



236 A DEFENCE OE IDEALISM 

his thinking, have become a dilemma that would have 
finished him. 

For, if he is honest, he must have asked himself how a 
logical function can at the same time be an objective real- 
ity. Now he knows. 

From the relation of the whole and part it was not quite 
possible for him to prove that things to be known per- 
fectly must be known as they are in the Absolute. But 
he has only got to read his three fat volumes of the Hege- 
lian Logic again in the light of the Logic of Mr. Bertrand 
Bussell to find his proof staring him in the face. To be 
sure, the Logic of Hegel has a thickness you could cut 
with a knife, and beside it the Logic of Mr. Eussell has the 
consistency of fine dust or of a thin gruel. But no matter. 
He can make out for himself that universals are the abso- 
lute reality of things. They, if anything is, are things 
as they are in the Absolute. We do not know them. We 
only know their appearances ; yet it is through them that 
the things we do know are known. 

The idealist has now got most of the things he wanted. 
If his mathematics are right he has found seven contra- 
dictions in his opponent's theory, making nine in all. If 
they are wrong, he has got two fairly crucial ones. In 
any case, his appearance and his ultimate reality are as 
secure as they were before the new realists attacked them ; 
he has got them tight. White is the appearance of white- 
ness, and whiteness is the ultimate reality of white. And 
he has got what he never could be quite sure of before — 
their relation. And if he has not got all the unity in 
multiplicity he wanted he has enough to satisfy any 
reasonable monist. A universal is most undeniably one in 
many, and its appearances are undeniably many in one. 

It is true that Analytic Logic rules out all hope of 
ascension to a highest universal, on pain of the contradic- 
tion of the One Subject-Predicate combination. It is true 
that there can be no rounding up of an infinite number of 



THE NEW EEALISM 237 

realities in one Ultimate Reality on the lines it lays down ; 
and that ultimate reality is, for it, a contradiction in 
terms ; or rather, every reality is immediate and ultimate. 

This is where the ways of Pluralism and of Monism 
part. 

But I think that it is here that the monist scores with 
his theory of universals and his theory of appearance and 
reality. For you can conceivably round up an infinite 
number of appearances in one Reality if your one reality 
is the one and only Absolute. And if, as he maintains, 
universals are not realities outside Absolute Spirit, but owe 
their reality to the very fact that they are in it, that they 
are spiritual, there need be no infinite number of them; 
that is to say, no infinite progress that removes his highest 
universal for ever from his grasp. His highest universal 
will be Spirituality. 

He can now maintain without any contradiction that 
Spirit is all things, and that all things are Spirit. You 
cannot floor him with his own distinction between ap- 
pearances and reality. There is appearance and there is 
reality. But if the spiritual universal truly is the reality 
of appearances ; if there is no other reality but Spirit, the 
appearances cannot assert an independent unspiritual real- 
ity of their own over against that universal. Appearances 
and reality are not mutually exclusive opposites. They 
are correlatives; and the distinction between them falls 
inside the " spirituality " that includes them both ; so that 
there will be no contradiction in the statement that Reality 
is its own appearance, and that appearances are reality. 
But the realist who denies the unity must also deny the 
distinction, since he maintains that Reality appears as it 
is. Whereas the monist not only does not deny the dis- 
tinction, but has every interest in affirming it; and he 
merely says that appearances are Reality as it appears, and 
that Reality does not appear as it is. 

The new realists, like M. Bergson, aspire to join hands 



238 A DEFENCE OE IDEALISM 

with Science. They should remember their ambition 
when they charge the idealist with arrogance. It is not 
he but they who overstep the modesty of Science. What 
they call " realities " Science and Idealism have agreed to 
call " phenomena." Nobody accuses Science of reducing 
its universe to one vast spectral hallucination or infinity of 
hallucinations. Appearances have this much of halluci- 
nation about them that they exist, but they do not subsist. 
To say this is not to deny the power and the glory of 
existence. 

It was suggested in the beginning of this essay that if 
the idealistic monist would only walk humbly and acknowl- 
edge and renounce his errors all might yet be well with 
him. Hope was even held out that if he would only face 
the New Eealism fairly and squarely, without any absurd 
depreciation of its strength, by surrendering certain posi- 
tions he might still hold others better worth keeping. 

I have supposed him to have put up his defence, I have 
even imagined him advancing on the enemy's positions. I 
might have made him show a more furious impetus in at- 
tack, but not, I think, a greater discretion in retirement. 
It is quite clear what Idealistic Monism must surrender if 
it is to hold its own in Philosophy. 

It must give up its narrow philosophy of Thought. It 
must give up looking for unities and identities and ulti- 
mate realities where they are not. It must give up its 
faith in the incompetent relation of the whole and part. 
It must admit that Metaphysical Logic is in need of re- 
form. And it must admit that Mr. Bertrand Russell has 
reformed it. It must admit the existence of a Pluralistic 
Universe. It must admit that as far as human conscious- 
ness is concerned this universe is very largely " spectacu- 
lar." But it need not accept the Pluriverse that Bealism 
has thrust upon it. 



THE NEW REALISM 239 

Above all, it must not say that its righteous suppositions 
are ontological certainties. 

If it observes these precautions it can hardly lay itself 
open to the charge of arrogance. 

All philosophers are a little arrogant. But which is 
the more arrogant, the one who says, either dogmatically 
or critically : This is a spectacular universe ; but the spec- 
tators do not count; and there is no reality behind the 
scene ? Or the one who says : This universe appears to 
be largely spectacular ; therefore it would be rather odd if 
there were not a reality behind it ? 

If he goes beyond this modest speculation it is because 
he finds himself intimately and mysteriously mixed up 
with the spectacle, like one of Mr. Russell's ultimates, in " a 
peculiar and undefinable relation." He is, in fact, part 
of it. He finds an immaterial reality for ever behind pre- 
cisely that portion of the spectacle that he constitutes; as 
if a rent had been torn in the scene just there. 

He is not considered arrogant or rash when he con- 
cludes that untold millions of spectators, also mixed up 
with the spectacle, intimately and mysteriously, in a 
peculiar and undefinable relation, constitute likewise so 
many spots, as it were, of immaterial reality discerned be- 
hind the scene. He finds that these spectators are mixed 
up with each other in an intimacy and a mystery more 
peculiar still. Is he, then, so very rash or so very arro- 
gant if he concludes that the immaterial realities discerned 
through those untold millions of rents are spots of one 
immaterial reality that is continuous behind the scene ? 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 



There are certainties and certainties. There is the 
blessed certainty that two and two make four. There is 
the still more blessed certainty that if X is greater than 
Y and Y is greater than Z, then X is greater than Z. 

There is the certainty that the sun will rise to-morrow. 

So far as this last certainty is based on repeated ex- 
periences of sunrises, it is not a certainty at all. All you 
can say is that what has happened a thousand million 
times will happen again if there is the same reason for its 
happening; if, that is to say, the cause or causes of its 
happening continue to work ; which, again, can only happen 
so long as the conditions of their working hold good. 
Causation applied to sequences is a pure hypothesis, 
and an hypothesis that will not work. And mere sequences 
provide no grounds for assuming causes. Still, fenced 
round with conditions, the certainty that the sun will rise 
to-morrow is a reasonable certainty. 

It cannot be said that at the end of our metaphysical 
quest we have reached any such certainty as this. We 
have not even established our contention that all meta- 
physical quests seek the same end. Pluralism gives the 
lie to our complacent assurance that their goal is unity. 

Still, we made out that all, with the one exception of 
Pluralism, are out for unity of some kind, if it be only the 
unity of utter negation. And Pluralism, in declaring that 
immediate reality is ultimate enough for it, is out for ulti- 

240 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 241 

mate reality. It even pays its tribute to the Absolute in 
regarding all its realities as absolute. 

Unity, then, or Ultimate Eeality, or both, are the ob- 
jects of the metaphysical quest. And in the contest be- 
tween the sticklers for the One and the sticklers for the 
Many, we found that Spiritual Monism has reason on its 
side only if it lowers its claim to something less than cer- 
tainty. The spiritual monist plays high, and he stands 
to lose more, if he should lose; but he is still within the 
rigour of the game. 

But outside these certainties, outside the rigour of the 
game, and outside the paths where reason leads so cau- 
tiously, there is a region of so-called certainties which we 
have not yet explored. It would be easy to say of these 
certainties that they are true for those for whom they are 
true, but that the claimants are all agreed both about their 
truth and about the way by which it is to be found ; and 
but that the object of their quest is the object of the meta- 
physical quest, Ultimate Eeality. They are so unani- 
mous, that, divided as they are by centuries and conti- 
nents, there is less distance between a Christian mystic of 
the thirteenth century and a Buddhist mystic of the pres- 
ent day than there is, say, between Mr. Bertrand Eussell 
and Mr. Gilbert Chesterton. 

They are the real plungers. They stake their lives 
upon the game and their souls upon the end of the adven- 
ture. Though they are many they go alone, on a dubious 
and dangerous way, to the " quiet place," the " untrav- 
elled country," the "City of God," "The Sorrowless 
Land." 

The region of their certainty is not a region where the 
laws of mathematics, and the laws of nature, and the laws 
of thought are suspended ; where two and two do not make 
four, but something else; and where miracles happen. 
Miracles are not by any means an essential part of the 



242 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

mystic's game. Still, he can give no rational account of 
his procedure. Reason does not reject him more than he 
rejects reason — in the wrong place. In the place where 
his adventures happen two and two do not exist, and their 
behaviour is irrelevant. 

But, if it comes to that, there is no reason why two and 
two should make four. They simply make it. There is 
no reason why the mystic should perceive Ultimate Real- 
ity. He simply perceives it. Extremes meet. The 
pluralisms perception of ultimate reality is immediate. So 
is the mystic's. But, if the mystic is right, the pluralisms 
reality is not ultimate. 

Now, it cannot be denied that Mysticism is suspect. 
It has a bad history. In fact it has two histories, an 
ancient and a modern history ; and it would be hard to say 
which of them is the worse. 

Mysticism goes back to the most primitive of primitive 
times; it is part of our ancestral heritage, of our sub- 
merged and savage past. This past is the skeleton in the 
monist's cupboard; for Monism itself is involved in this 
ancient history. That is why healthy pluralists and 
healthy pragmatists will have none of it. They abhor the 
taint. The monist is always suspected of some mystical 
parti pris. He is like a man with a history of drink in 
his family; he cannot escape the damaging imputation. 
Yet it by no means follows because every mystic is a 
monist, that every monist is a mystic. It does not follow 
because the mystic gets at his Ultimate Reality by way of 
passion and vision, that the monist is implicated in his 
orgies and hallucinations. At this rate Mr. Bertrand Rus- 
sell's Principia Mathematica should be gravely compro- 
mised by the ancient history of Sacred Numbers. 

But let us say that Monism is the lineal descendant of 
Mysticism, or that the two are collaterals and have the 
same ancestry. If Mysticism has had an ancient history, 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 243 

it must have been evolved. It must have become what it 
once was not. It cannot now be what it once was. All 
the same, the stages of its evolution must be linked to- 
gether by one and the same thread. 

That thread is the same thread that we found in tracing 
the evolution of the psyche — it is the Will-to-live, the 
Desire to have life, and to have it more abundantly. As 
the psyche grows this desire grows with it; or rather it 
would seem to be the very mainspring of its growth ; any- 
how it grows ; it grows into a consuming passion ; it passes 
beyond physical bounds ; and the Love of Life becomes the 
Love of God. 

The primitive and savage form of it is the desire for fer- 
tility, the desire to live and to make live; primitive and 
savage Magic (the humble origin of Mysticism with which 
it is reproached) is fertility magic ; the earliest rites, the 
rites de passage, the rites of tribal initiation, of adoles- 
cence, of marriage, the funeral rites of death itself have 
one and the same object, to bring life, to ensure the viril- 
ity of the tribesmen. The ghosts of the dead must be 
appeased with sacrifices that they may bring fertility to 
the earth. Eor ghosts (Miss Jane Harrison is my au- 
thority) were conceived first of all as underground things, 
as " germs from the grave " ; 40 the very earliest Greek 
vase paintings show them as diminutive psyches, or winged 
Keres fluttering in a grave-jar. The savage placates the 
ghosts of his forefathers first of all that he may obtain 
their strength, their mana; he drinks the blood of human 
secrifices, or of the sacrificial animal, that he may get 
their life. Later on, he divines a god in the dead hero, 
and in the form of the sacrificial animal. In partaking of 
the flesh and blood of the animal, he gets the life of the 
god. 

So far we seem to have hardly advanced a step beyond 
savagery. But presently Magic becomes Mystery. The 
initiate aspires to union with the God ; union, first of all, 



244 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

for the sake of fertility. The Lesser Mysteries seem to 
have had, frankly, no other aim. It is in the Greater 
Mysteries of Eleusis, in the Sacred Marriage and the 
Sacred Birth that the conception of fertility broadens and 
deepens, and that the Life-Force appears as the stupendous 
and the divine thing it is. It does not matter whether the 
Sacred Marriage was an actual physical union between 
priest and priestess, hierophant and initiate; or whether, 
as Miss Jane Harrison assures us, it was an entirely spir- 
itual and symbolic rite ; or whether, again, it was originally 
actual and physical, and became spiritual and symbolic 
afterwards ; or whether it was originally spiritual and was 
afterwards debased. Miss Harrison seems to me to have 
proved her case; the Sacred Marriage that began, there 
can be little doubt, as a fertility rite, ends in the adoration 
of Life itself; and becomes itself a rite de passage from 
the Lesser Mystery of the body to the Greater Mysteries 
of the soul. And by the time the Orphics have taken the 
thing in hand there is no doubt as to what has happened 
and is happening. The last and greatest initiation is ac- 
complished. The dangerous passage from the physical to 
the spiritual life has been made. No matter if the Orphic 
mystic covered himself from head to foot with white clay, 
like his descendant the Pierrot and like his ancestor, the 
savage " white-clay man " of tribal rites of adolescence. 
His whiteness is now symbolic of the New Life. It does 
not matter whether the Orphic always was or was not the 
utterly spiritual person his whiteness proclaimed him to 
be. The spiritual life now appears as the object of desire 
and ambition ; and desire and ambition we have seen to be 
always in advance of actual achievement. When Magic 
becomes Mystery we are on the threshold of Ultimate Real- 
ity. Henceforth there is no doubt as to the meaning of 
the words " New Birth " and " Union with God." 

Now it is possible to read into the Orphic Mysteries 
more of Plato than they will bear; but this much seems 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 245 

certain, that before Plato's time the sense of life had 
widened so far as to make way for Platonism, for Neo- 
Platonism, and for Christianity. And the sense of life be- 
comes more and more the sense of the Unseen ; the love of 
God becomes more and more the passion for the Absolute. 

I am quite willing to give up Neo-Platonism to anybody 
who wants to go for it on the grounds that it carried the 
passion for Godhead to drunken excess. Neo-Platonic 
Mysticism is a psychological phenomenon like any other. 
It was the phenomenon you might expect when East and 
West were violently flung together in the great melting-pot 
of Alexandria. 

What I want to point out is that, at the very finest 
period of Greek civilization, Philosophy was turning from 
the doctrines of the Many : from the doctrine of the flux, 
and from the doctrine of Atomism, from the Pragmatic Hu- 
manism of the Sophists, to the doctrine of the One; and 
that the distinction was then made between appearance 
and Eeality; and that the passion for God and the meta- 
physical quest of the Absolute ran together. Or rather 
the metaphysical hunt was foremost. Thought led and 
passion did its best to follow. Those people who will have 
it that Monism is the offshoot of Mysticism, a disease of 
thought reverting to a savage ancestry, should really read 
their Plato all over again, and Aristotle on the top of him, 
and Plotinus and Philo and Porphyry on the top of Aris- 
totle; when it may become clear to them that Mysticism 
owes more to philosophy than philosophy could ever owe 
to it. Plato gives a point now and then to pluralistic 
realism; but if they are going to stretch that point, and 
insist that Plato was a Pluralist, and that Aristotle, the 
detestable Aristotle, was the accursed thing, all the better 
— they will have some difficulty in bringing home a 
charge of Mysticism against him! 

I would also suggest that the primitive savage had no 
monistic prejudices; the more ghosts bestowed on him 



246 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

their mana, the more sacrificial animals gave him their life 
to drink, the more everything all round him increased and 
multiplied, the better he was pleased. 

You cannot get away from it. The quest of Ultimate 
Reality is as much a necessity of thought as it is a passion 
of the soul. And the idea of the Absolute is not primitive. 
It is a very late and highly u sublimated " idea. 

Because Greek art has preserved for us the earliest 
origins of Greek religion; and because Greek literature 
and Greek philosophy are still alive among us at this day 
(thank Heaven!), we are able to trace the stages of this 
development and the links of these connections. But if 
you will read those Sacred Books of the East which the 
robust (the almost too emphatically robust) pragmatist re- 
gards as so much Benger's Food for sick souls, because lie 
has lost his mature and healthy appetite for unity, if you 
will read the Vedas and the Upanishads, and the commen- 
taries of the Vedanta, and the Buddhist Suttas, and the 
Texts of Taoism, you will find the same development and 
the same connections. Here again, thought leads and the 
passion for the Absolute follows ; until thought overthrows 
the thinker; and thought and passion, and the desire of 
Life are consumed (or consummated) in Nirvana, or in 
the " Emptiness and Nothingness " of the Great Tao. 

But the Old Testament gives you pause. The links be- 
tween primitive fertility magic and mysticism, between 
tribal initiations, rites de passage, sacrificial ritual and 
redemption, between the desire for physical life and the 
desire for spiritual life, are as apparent as you would ex- 
pect them to be. But the lead of thought, the metaphysical 
flair, is entirely wanting. The Hebrew's thirst for God 
was a consuming thirst. 

" Like as the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so longeth my 
soul after Thee, O God. 
My soul thirsteth for God, even for the living God : when shall 
I come to appear before God?" (Psalm xlii.) 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 247 

But the philoprogenitive Jew thought of God as the 
Creator, the Father. He never rose to the metaphysical 
conception of the Absolute. To the very last, Jehovah 
preserved some of the old ways of the tribal deity. He 
was a struggling and a battling God; full of mercy when 
he got his own way, and of vengeance when he didn't. In 
his milder moods he was very like the pragmatic God of 
Humanism. The first Jew who developed a passion for 
the Absolute was cursed by his people and driven out of 
their synagogues. And if Baruch Spinoza had lived in 
the first century instead of the seventeenth they would 
have crucified him. 

Still, though the God of the prophets is not and never 
can be the Absolute, he is One. Beligion that begins in 
the fear of the supernatural and ends in the consuming 
love of it, is the historic witness to the passion for unity. 
Polytheism, which might be supposed to prove the con- 
trary, is a case in point. Ancestor worship, which seems 
to have been at the bottom of the whole business (fathers 
being fertile), gives way to hero-worship. When the 
pantheon is inconveniently crowded, the merging of the 
gods takes place. The gods make a fine show of multi- 
plicity when they are all gathered together in one heaven ; 
but apparently 41 there is none of them that did not start 
as a more or less single tribal or local hero. The most 
ancient of all, the underground gods of fertility and life 
in death, were so indeterminate in person, and so universal 
in power and function, as to count as one. When the gods 
multiply by migration of local heroes, their mysterious 
godhead diminishes with their multiplicity; until ulti- 
mately they are gathered up again into one : one Jehovah, 
one Zeus, and practically one Ormuzd, one Mithra, one 
Shang Ti, and, where ancestor-worship has persisted, one 
Mikado. 

On any theory with a pluralistic bias it is remarkable, to 
say the least of it, that where polytheism is most rampant, 



248 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

as in India, the reaction to Pantheism and to Mysticism 
has been strongest ; and that in J apan, where ancestor-wor- 
ship has persisted into civilized times, the great refuge is 
Buddhism. Does it not look as if the inappeasable pas- 
sion was, and is, this longing to escape from multiplicity 
and from the importunity of ancestors, this refusal to have 
the eternal spaces bewilderingly thronged? The same 
uneasiness is at the root of the craving for the mystic 
union with God ; and it is fiercest in a religion like Chris- 
tianity, which is based on a metaphysical and moral dual- 
ism, antagonism between soul and body and separation 
between God and man. It tries in vain to bridge the gulf 
with its makeshift doctrine of Incarnation and Atonement. 

It would be absurd to say that Christian asceticism was 
worse than any other, but none has been more unclean and 
more profane in its repudiation of the earth. Christianity 
took to itself the ritual of the world it conquered ; but it 
refused the one thing in that ritual which was necessary 
to its own salvation — the simple, sacramental attitude to 
life. In spite of its beautiful doctrine of love and mercy 
and pity, it was instinct with the spirit's cruelty to the 
flesh. 

And it is precisely this atonement manque, this failure 
of a spiritual religion to be spiritual enough, that is at the 
root of half the evil and the sickness and the suffering of 
the modern world. A religion spiritual enough to have 
made a genuine atonement between God and man would 
have conquered, not Europe and America only, but the 
whole world. 

But if such an ideal can be conceived without a meta- 
physic, it could not be born from the ruins of Paganism 
and of a Boman Empire, and from the conquests of half- 
savage Goths and Visigoths. It was the secret thing con- 
ceived in the soul of Christ, that has its dwelling in the 
prophetic need and in the dreams and in the heart of 
man. But it is still waiting to be born. 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 249 

That other profoundly unChristian Christianity is im- 
portant for our assumption ; for it is the unique source of 
the moral argument which is the most serious objection 
the pragmatic humanist has brought against the monist. 
By a peculiar irony that argument bears hardest upon 
Dualism's own god, the absconding Deity of historic and 
popular Christianity; and we have seen that there is no 
solution of his moral problem that does not land the 
humanist in Monism again. 

And, by yet another irony, the Christian dogma of the 
Atonement is the most powerful indictment of the ab- 
sentee Almighty, and an implicit confession that the God 
of Pantheism is our only refuge. 

Monism, I think, has shown itself to be imperishable 
under some form or other, and to be about as much tainted 
with primitive savagery as, say, the higher mathematics. 

But what about Mysticism ? 

Mysticism may be no more tied to its ancient history 
than any other of our instincts and aptitudes, but it does 
betray a shocking tendency to revert. At least Western 
Mysticism has betrayed that tendency. 

And its modern history is every bit as bad as its past. 

I know that one of the most distinguished authorities on 
Western Mysticism, Evelyn Underhill, has assured us 
that this is not so; that, though Magic and Mysticism 
have a common traffic in the supernatural, their interest 
and their object are essentially different. 

" The fundamental difference between the two is this : magic 
wants to get, mysticism wants to give — 

. . . We may class broadly as magical all forms of self-seeking 
transcendentalism. . . . The object of the thing is always the 
same : the deliberate exaltation of the will, till it transcends its 
usual limitations, and obtains for the self or groups of selves 
something which it or they did not previously possess. It is an 
individualistic and acquisitive science. . . ." {Mysticism, pp. 
84, 85.) 



250 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

This is no doubt true in a sense. It is also true that 
the object of Mysticism is to get something, and that all 
its giving is a means to getting. The mystic wants to 
get illumination, to get peace, to get deliverance, to feed 
on life and drink life — to eat His flesh and drink His 
blood — to get spiritual sustenance, the mana of the God. 
The parallel is very close indeed. 

But there is this prodigious difference: primitive man 
desires to get by magic physical things that, without it, 
would come to him of their own accord, in due season; 
only he does not yet know that: the mystic desires to get 
spiritual things. And still the parallel holds so far that 
both are ensuring against possible failure. 

And between these two regions of desire and expectation 
there is a dubious borderland: the region of the so-called 
supernatural powers, of which the mystic himself cannot 
say whether they are magical or spiritual: the power of 
healing, of vision, of clairvoyance and clairaudience, of 
control over matter. This is the region where " miracles " 
are said to happen ; though neither the believer in magic 
nor the mystic know what is really happening. " It," 
whatever " it " is, happens in the East and West wherever 
magic and mysticism are known and practised. 

The Taoist, the " Perfect Man," says Kwang-zze, " is 
spirit-like. Great lakes might be boiling about him and 
he would not feel their heat; the Ho and the Han might 
be frozen up, and he would not feel the cold ... he 
mounts on the clouds of the air, and rides on the sun and 
moon, and rambles at ease beyond the four seas." 

" If," says the Buddhist Sutta, " a Bhikkhu should de- 
sire to exercise one by one each of the different mystical 
powers, being one to become multiform, being multiform 
to become one ; to become visible, or to become invisible, to 
go without being stopped to the further side of a wall or a 
fence or a mountain, as if through air ; to penetrate up and 
down through solid ground, as if through water; to walk 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 251 

on the water without dividing it, as if on solid ground ; to 
travel cross-legged through the sky, like the birds on wing ; 
to touch and feel with the hand even the sun and moon, 
mighty and powerful though they be ; and to reach in the 
body even up to the heaven of Brahma ; ... to hear with 
clear and heavenly ear, surpassing that of men, sounds 
both human and celestial, whether far or near," there is 
nothing to prevent him ; he has only got to " fulfil all 
righteousness," to be " devoted to that quietude of heart 
which springs from within," and not to " drive back the 
ecstasy of contemplation." He must " look through 
things " ; he must be " much alone." 42 

Anybody with the smallest knowledge of abnormal psy- 
chology will see that this is the region of telepathy, and 
of suggestion and auto-suggestion, and of " psychic phe- 
nomena " generally. And nobody with the slightest in- 
tellectual caution will deny that it is a region of the ut- 
most uncertainty and danger. 

Now there is not one of the mystic's claims that is not 
under serious consideration at the present day. They 
cannot be settled with and dismissed at sight as palpable 
absurdities. The things he calls spiritual and the things 
other people call psychic are too closely platted together to 
be easily disentangled. What is more, the belief in the 
supernatural, even Magic itself, have never died out of 
human history. Mysticism itself, in some form or other, 
has never died. All the philosophy and all the science of 
the nineteenth century have been powerless against it. So 
far from being near its death in this century, it seems to 
be approaching a rather serious revival. 

The modern psychologist and the psycho-analyst will 
tell you that there is nothing mysterious about this inde- 
structibility and persistence. Mysticism is as indestruct- 
ible as the human libido, and as persistent as human folly ; 
and its revival in the twentieth century is precisely what 



252 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

you might expect in an age in which neurosis is the pre- 
vailing malady. The specialist in morbid psychology will 
tell you that the history of Mysticism is a history of neu- 
rosis. 43 He will point, not in undue triumph, to the 
saints and mystics of the Salpetriere. He will assure you 
that the great saints and mystics are in no better case; 
but that, on the contrary, the life of the religious recluse 
provides in a supreme degree all the conditions of the 
hysterical neurosis ; its repressions are the classical repres- 
sions ; its results the classical results. He will ask you to 
consider dispassionately the awful record of ill-health re- 
vealed in the lives of the Saints, and, piling proof upon 
proof, he will show you in their visions and phantasies a 
perfect correspondence with the visions and phantasies of 
the neurotic and the insane. 

And the sting of his observations will be in their truth. 

What is to be said of these utterances of Saint Teresa 
herself ? She speaks of " the great shocks I used to feel 
when our Lord would throw me into these trances." And 
again, " it is like a person, who, having a rope round his 
neck tries to breathe." " On other occasions the soul 
seems to be in the utmost extremity of need, asking itself 
and saying, Where is Thy God %" "I saw myself dying 
with a desire to see God, and I knew not how to seek that 
life otherwise than by dying. Certain great impetuosities 
of love, though not so intolerable as those of which I have 
spoken before . . . overwhelmed me." " This prayer is 
like the sobbing of little children, who seem on the point 
of choking and whose disordered senses are soothed by giv- 
ing them to drink." " Some slight mitigations may be 
had, and the pain may pass away for a little by praying 
God to relieve its sufferings: but the soul sees no relief 
except in death, by which it hopes to attain the fruition of 
its good. At other times these impetuosities are so vio- 
lent, the soul can do neither this nor anything else; the 
whole body is contracted, and neither hand nor foot can be 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 253 

moved : If the body be upright at the time it falls down, 
as a thing that has no control over itself. It cannot even 
breathe ; all it does is to moan — not loudly, because it 
cannot : its moaning, however, comes from a keen sense of 
pain." Again, an angel appears to her in a vision. " I 
saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's end 
there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to be thrust- 
ing it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very en- 
trails : when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out 
also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God." 44 

Of St. Catherine of Genoa it is said that " at times she 
would seem to have her mind in a mill ; and as if this mill 
were indeed grinding her soul and body." " She would 
at times, when in the garden, seize hold of the thorn-cov- 
ered twigs of the rose-bushes with both her hands ; and 
would not feel any pain while thus doing it in a transport 
of mind. She would also bite her hands and burn them, 
and this in order to divert, if possible, her interior op- 
pression." 45 

St. John of the Cross speaks of " an intense and amorous 
impetus," answering to St. Teresa's " impetuosities." 46 
And what are we to make of his confession that the ecsta- 
sies of the soul's union with God are often so poignant that 
they interpenetrate the body itself, so that it is awakened 
and partakes of the soul's passion after its own kind ? 47 

Even Lady Julian of Norwich, that most exquisite and 
lovable of all mystics, whose love of God was not greater 
than her love of her neighbour, who saw " that each kind 
compassion that man hath on his even-Christen it is Christ 
in him," even Lady Julian was tormented. Her beautiful 
soul was haunted by the most horrible visions, the result 
of concentrated meditation on the Passion. 

" I saw the bodily sight lasting of the plenteous bleeding of 
the Head. The great drops of blood fell down from under the 
Garland like pellets, seeming as it had come out of the veins; 
and in the coming out they were brown-red, for the blood was 



254 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

full thick; and in the spreading-abroad they were bright -red; 
and when they came to the brows, then they vanished; notwith- 
standing, the bleeding continued till many things were seen and 
understood. The fairness and the lifelikeness is like nothing 
but the same ; the plenteousness is like to the drops of water that 
fall off the eaves after a great shower of rain, that fall so 
thick that no man may number them with bodily wit; and for 
the roundness, they were like to the scale of herring, in the 
spreading on the forehead. These three came to my mind in the 
time : pellets, for roundness, in the coming out of the blood ; the 
scale of the herring, in the spreading in the forehead, for round- 
ness; the drops off eaves, for the plenteousness innumerable. 

" This Shewing was quick and life-like, and horrifying and 
dreadful, sweet and lovely." (Revelations of Divine Love, pp. 
15, 16.) 

She has this vision of Christ's thirst. 

" For this word was shewed for the bodily thirst : the which 
I understood was caused by failing of moisture. For the 
blessed flesh and bones was left all alone without blood and 
moisture. The blessed body dried alone long time with 
wringing of the nails and weight of the body. For I under- 
stood that for tenderness of the sweet hands and of the sweet 
feet, by the greatness, hardness, and grievousness of the nails 
the wounds waxed wide and the body sagged, for weight by 
long time hanging. And (therewith was) piercing and pressing 
of the head, and binding of the Crown all baked with dry 
blood, with the sweet hair clinging, and the dry flesh, to the 
thorns, and the thorns to the flesh drying; and in the beginning 
while the flesh was fresh and bleeding, the continual sitting of 
the thorns made the wounds wide. And furthermore I saw that 
the sweet skin and the tender flesh, with the hair and the blood, 
was all raised and loosed about from the bone, with the thorns 
where-through it were rent in many pieces, as a cloth that 
were sagging, as if it would hastily have fallen off, for heavi- 
ness and looseness, while it had natural moisture. And that 
was great sorrow and dread to me: for methought I would not 
for my life have seen it fall. How it was done I saw not; but 
understood it was with the sharp thorns and the violent and 
grievous setting on of the Garland of Thorns, unsparingly and 
without pity. This continued awhile, and soon it began to 
change, and I beheld and marvelled how it might be. And 
then I saw it was because it began to dry, and stint a part of 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 255 

the weight, and set about the Garland. And thus it encircled 
all about, as it were garland upon garland. The Garland of 
the Thorns was dyed with the blood, and that other garland 
(of Blood) and the head, all was one colour, as clotted blood 
when it is dry. The skin of the flesh that shewed (of the face 
and of the body), was small-rimpled ; with a tanned colour, like 
a dry board when it is aged; and the face more brown than 
the body." (Ibid. pp. 33, 39.) 

But the Freudian psychoanalyst would be specially in- 
terested in Lady Julian's Vision of the Fiend, who visited 
her in her sleep. 

"I lay still till night, trusting in His mercy, and then I 
began to sleep. And in the sleep, at the beginning, methought 
the Fiend set him on my throat, putting forth a visage full 
near my face, like a young man's, and it was long and wondrous 
lean: I saw never none such. The colour was red like the tile- 
stone when it is new-burnt, with black spots therein like black 
freckles — fouler than the tilestone. His hair was red as rust, 
clipped in front, with full locks hanging on the temples. He 
grinned on me with a malicious semblance, shewing white 
teeth: and so much methought it the more horrible. Body nor 
hands had he none shapely, but with his paws he held me in 
the throat, and would have strangled me, but he might not." 
{Ibid. pp. 165, 166.) 

And I am afraid pathologists will not be inclined to 
accept Lady Julian's own interpretation of her Vision of 
the Child and the dead body. 

" And in this time I saw a body lying on the earth, which 
body shewed heavy and horrible, without shape and form, as it 
were a swollen quag of stinking mire. And suddenly out of 
this body sprang a full fair creature, a little Child, fully shapen 
and formed, nimble and lively, whiter than lily; which swiftly 
glided up into heaven. And the swollenness of the body be- 
tokeneth great wretchedness of our deadly flesh, and the little- 
ness of the Child betokeneth the cleanness of purity in the soul. 
And methought: With this body abideth no fairness of this 
Child, and on this Child dwelleth no foulness of this body." 
(Ibid. pp. 160, 161.) 



256 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

When you remember that these visions came to the mys- 
tic in her little anchoress's house in the graveyard of the 
church of St. Julian, the wonder is, not that they were so 
terrible but that they were not much worse. 

And besides being morbid and unbalanced the mystics 
— not Lady Julian, but other mystics — show a certain 
arrogance. For all their humility and self -surrender they 
show arrogance. The saint is exalted because she has won 
God's love, because she is chosen above other women to be 
the Spouse of Christ. The Blessed Angela of Foligno de- 
clared that the Lord had told her he loved her " above any 
other woman in the valley of Spoleto." 48 You seldom 
hear of the other spouses, the other loves. The attitude is 
entirely self-centred. It would be interesting to know what 
Saint Teresa would have said to Lady Julian, or Saint 
Catharine of Siena to the Blessed Angela. 

We do know what Saint Teresa thought of her own nuns 
when they had aspirations. In her normal state the " un- 
daunted daughter of desires " was one of the wisest and 
strongest-minded of the saints, second only to Saint Catha- 
rine of Siena in wisdom and strongmindedness and prac- 
tical common sense. She was suspicious of experiences, 
especially of other people's experiences; and she owns to 
a profound distrust of " vision." There is often no sign by 
which the soul can tell a vision sent by God from a vision 
sent by Satan. 49 She recognizes that in this very region 
of phantasy and symbol there lie hidden the deepest pit- 
falls for the soul. Therefore, whatever risk she herself 
was prepared to take, she did not allow her nuns to seek 
these adventures — passing on the discouragement she 
had received from her own spiritual directors. Spiritual 
jealousy — the last infirmity of saints — may have had 
something to do with these prohibitions ; but it is far more 
likely that they were meant as safeguards against the dead- 
liest perils of the monastic life. The spiritual directors 
were the psychoanalysts of their day; and when a great 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 257 

mystic pleaded that his or her case was exceptional we can 
imagine them replying with all the finality of their science : 
There are no exceptions. And the modern psychoanalyst 
argues, with every show of reason, thus : If in nine hun- 
dred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand the same sym- 
bolic phantasy has been found to stand for the same thing, 
how, when the thousandth case presents that symbolic 
phantasy, can we admit its plea to be regarded as an excep- 
tion ? You say that it depends on the context ; and you are 
told ruthlessly that the context is the same. There are no 
exceptions. Out of their own mouths the great mystics 
stand condemned. 

So far from there being any way out and forwards in 
this direction, it would seem that the Mystic Way is the 
surest way backwards and in. For two reasons. First, 
because in the mystic longing and the mystic union Sub- 
limation is still imperfect. The " libido," although it is 
transferred from a human and bodily object to a divine and 
spiritual one, is not transformed. It is simply " carried 
over " in a more or less unsublimated state. Secondly, be- 
cause the mystic look is essentially an inward one. The 
mystic seeks God, for the most part, not in the outer world 
of art and science and action, but in the darkest and most 
secret recesses of his own soul. And it is precisely this 
darkness and secrecy that the psychoanalyst has the most 
reason to mistrust. 

If anybody could persuade me that all was and is well 
with the mystics it would be Miss Evelyn Underhill. She 
does not blink the patent, and indeed blatant, fact of 
" mystical ill-health." 

" If we see in the mystics, as some have done, the sporadic 
beginning of a power, a higher consciousness, towards which 
the race slowly tends; then it seems likely enough that where 
it appears nerves and organs should suffer under a stress to 
which they have not yet become adapted, and that a spirit more 
highly organised than its bodily home should be able to impose 



258 A DEFENCE OE IDEALISM 

strange conditions on the flesh. ... It is at least permissible 
to look on the strange psychological state common amongst the 
mystics as just such a rebellion on the part of a normal nervous 
and vascular system against the exigencies of a way of life to 
which it has not yet adjusted itself." (Mysticism, pp. 73, 74.) 

This is, I think, broadly and roughly true. But it 
would be more closely and finely true to say that the mystic 
consciousness presents in a marked degree the pathological 
phenomena of " dissociation." 

M. Janet's account of the matter in his Etat mentale 
des Hysteriques, leaves us in no doubt as to what is actu- 
ally happening here. He shows that the root of the 
neuroses and psychoses, of all mental maladies in fact, lies 
in dissociation: the break between one idea, or group of 
ideas, and its normal context and logical connections; the 
cutting off of one psychic state, or group of states, from 
the stream of consciousness itself. This isolated and aban- 
doned tract is the home of all the obsessions, the fixed ideas, 
the morbid " complexes " unearthed by the psychoanalysts, 
the day-dreams and phantasies of neurotic and insane per- 
sons; it is the home of lapsed instincts and memories, of 
things forgotten because of their dreadfulness or simply be- 
cause of their uselessness; it is our ancestral and racial 
territory, the place of our forgotten and yet undying past, 
of what has been conscious once, and is no longer conscious. 
Portions of our present that we have no use for and that 
would only hamper us are continually going to join this 
forsaken past. But if we are to keep the image of con- 
sciousness as a " stream " we had better say that they 
sink to the bottom and stay there until some eddy in the 
deep stirs them up again. You can reverse the image, if 
you like, and think of consciousness as some city of the sea, 
raised on land partly submerged, partly reclaimed from 
the sea; a sea that threatens perpetually to overflow the 
thresholds of its palaces. 

But (without bothering about territories and streams 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 259 

and bottoms and seas and thresholds), the point to bear in 
mind is that all lapses and losses of a present memory or 
aptitude (barring physical lesion or decay), all perversions 
of instinct and desire, all suppressions, obsessions and pos- 
sessions, all cases of double or multiple personality, are 
states primarily and essentially of dissociation. And that 
detachment, which is the one indispensable condition of 
mystical experience, is, primarily and essentially, a state 
of dissociation. And it is, as mystics themselves are per- 
fectly well aware, a very dangerous state. There is not 
one step of the " Mystic Way," from meditation, through 
illumination, introversion (contemplation and quiet) to 
deliverance and to ecstasy, that is not a step further in the 
process of dissociation. The mystic, deliberately seeking 
Ultimate Reality, has left normal consciousness behind 
him ; he has closed all the approaches in that direction ; and 
he has opened doors (another image, but I can't help it), 
he has opened doors to anything that may be waiting for 
him below or beyond the threshold. 

He is out or " in " for a dreadfully perilous adventure ; 
and what happens to him will depend on whether this 
region beyond normal consciousness is only the too well- 
trodden territory of the past or also the " untrodden coun- 
try " of the future. In the one case his mystical expe- 
rience will be a sinking downwards or a turning back- 
wards : in the other it may be a rising upwards or a going 
on. And there is a third alternative — it may be both. 
Quite easily it may be both ; for we have now to do with a 
more or less divided and disintegrated personality. 

I think that — still keeping the saints and mystics of 
the Salpetriere well in sight — we shall find that there are 
some grounds for supposing that the country of abnormal 
consciousness stretches forwards as well as backwards, and 
belongs every bit as much to our future as to our past. 
Our normal, everyday, present consciousness lies between 
what has been and what shall be ; it has been developed, as 



260 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

we have seen, by processes of forgetting, that is to say of 
dissociation, carried to perfection ; it exists as it is now by 
virtue of its defiance and its rupture with the past that it 
suppresses but is powerless to destroy. So that, if it is to 
advance at all beyond its normal state, it can only do so 
by a process of detachment or dissociation ; by that letting 
go and forgetting of the actual, by that renunciation and 
self -surrender, that dying to live which is the secret of the 
mystic life. 

Let us suppose then that in his abnormal state the mys- 
tic has before him the entire range of the " Unconscious " 
and " Subconscious " ; that his psyche hovers between its 
old forgotten playground of the past and its unknown play- 
ground of the future. It may be the prey and the victim 
of powers, of instincts and of memories, which once served 
its development, and which have dropped from it by dis- 
use; or it may be the experimenter with undeveloped 
powers of which it is by no means the master. At best it 
can only advance a little way, a very little way along the 
path it is ultimately destined to travel. But it can go back 
very easily down that well-trodden path by which it came. 
It can go a short way, or even a fairly long way and yet 
return. But if it goes too far it is lost; it is hopelessly 
estranged from itself and from the life of the normal liv- 
ing; it is (not to mince matters) mad. 

Or it may go up and down on the two paths. And its 
tendency to go up and down, or to go downwards most 
of the time, and seldom if ever to go upward all the time, 
or even for very long at any one time, is recorded in the 
confessions of all the saints. 

In the face of these confessions we might feel suspicious 
of our supposition but for two things: we have personal 
experience of psychic " dissociation " every night when 
we dream ; and we have authentic evidence bearing on the 
existence of a fairly extensive borderland, lying between 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 261 

Magic and Mysticism — the region of the so-called 
" psychic powers." 

Professor Ereud has said two notable things about 
dreams : " Dreams are a piece of the conquered life of 
the childish soul," and " The dream is a disguised fulfil- 
ment of a repressed wish." 50 He might have said with 
equal truth : Dreams are a piece of the yet unconquered 
life of the soul that is to be. Or: The dream is a ful- 
filment of the repressed desire to transcend our normal 
powers, seeing that in our dream-consciousness we do 
transcend them. In every dream adventure we make ex- 
periments with the soul that is to be. 

If dreaming were not the common and accustomed thing 
it is, we should be astounded at our own performances every 
time we dream. When people come down in the morning 
and tell you that they have had a very remarkable dream, 
what they mean is that their dreams are more remarkable 
than other people's dreams ; but it does not occur to them 
how remarkable it is that anybody should have a dream at 
all. 

It was no doubt a good thing for the race when it defi- 
nitely made up its mind that we are dealing with realities 
when we wake and with unrealities when we dream ; but it 
is mainly owing to this really very rash assumption that an 
extraordinarily interesting and significant form of con- 
sciousness should have been left to the imaginative layman 
and the quack investigator until the psychoanalysts took it 
over. I am not forgetting the admirable work done by the 
Society for Psychical Kesearch. This has been mainly 
in collecting and sifting material for Psychology to deal 
with ; but recent discussion has tended towards recognition 
of the dream's peculiar and profound reality. 51 

Dream experiences are not explained by calling them 
hallucinations; nor yet when we have named their cause 
" unconscious cerebration." Cerebration is always uncon- 



262 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

scious, and it accompanies and perhaps in some way con- 
ditions waking consciousness too. That there should be 
inside excitements and reverberations, nerve-cells and 
brain-cells keeping up their activity on their own, after the 
outside stimulus has ceased, is not more remarkable than 
any other physical event. But we should expect the psy- 
chic events that correspond with this activity to be the faded 
images, the fainter reverberations of waking states; to be 
as broken, as confused, and as fantastic as you please, but 
still to obey the ordinary fundamental conditions of space 
and time. So far as it accounts for anything, unconscious 
cerebration might account for such a dream-consciousness 
as this; but not for the dream-consciousness we know. 
The unaccountable things are the conditions of the dream 
itself; the dream-space, the dream-time, the dream-unity 
of consciousness, the dream itself. No amount of uncon- 
scious cerebration can explain the facts that at one and the 
same time I am or seem to be several other persons besides 
myself, while preserving my own identity in them ; 52 that 
I can penetrate into walled spaces without opening doors ; 
that I can arrive at positions in space without occupying 
intermediate positions in space; that I can go through a 
continuous series of performances, involving an expendi- 
ture of time that may be anything between five hours and 
&ve days, or, with suitable breaks, even five years ; all in 
what proves to have been three seconds by the watch at my 
bedside. In my nerve and brain records there can be no 
memory of my ever having done these things; and they 
cannot well be explained as " compounds " of fragments 
of the things I have done. Surely the obvious inference 
is that I do them, not in the space of waking consciousness, 
and not in three seconds of watch-time, but in another space 
and in another time ; and that in doing them "I" have 
been both the waking I and another more marvellous I, 
and to some extent others ? For the waking I remembers 
the dream experience, though not always perfectly; and 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 263 

the dream I remembers parts, at any rate, of the waking 
experience. 

That is to say, while preserving selfhood, it has trans- 
cended normal consciousness. 

It is probable that racial consciousness is resurgent in the 
dreams even of normal people, and that it plays an enor- 
mous part in the dreams of neurotics and of lunatics. It 
is probable that in dreams the psyche goes backwards. It 
is no less probable, I think, that, urged by its half-con- 
scious and wholly prophetic need, it goes forwards too, and 
grasps at and reaches powers that will ultimately be its 
normal, conscious possession. 

And besides the dream-powers, there are the other 
powers of the Borderland, the " psychic " powers that be- 
long to the world of Mysticism and Magic and the occult, 
and are claimed equally by scoundrels and by saints. Un- 
til comparatively recent years they, and the peculiar form 
of consciousness they involve, were in the same case as the 
dream-powers ; they were left to the quack practitioner and 
the amateur investigator. Most of us can remember the 
time when the existence of telepathy was not admitted by 
persons who had a scientific reputation to take care of, 
and " suggestion " was on its trial. As for faith-healing, 
palmistry, clairvoyance, clair-audience, automatism, me- 
diumship, and the rest, they are still mixed up with such 
fraud and humbug and silliness, and with persons so dis- 
graceful, so discredited, so absurd, that it is not easy to 
write about them in a work that is, at any rate, trying to be 
serious. I feel (to be disgustingly egoistic) that any repu- 
tation I may have is already so imperilled by my devout ad- 
hesion to the Absolute that I simply cannot afford to be 
suspected of tenderness, or even toleration for the pro- 
fessors of the occult. The Society for Psychical Re- 
search may be trusted to deal appropriately with unor- 
ganized imposture; but the organized variety is another 



264 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

matter. And there are at least two organizations which, 
seem to be beyond the power of any Society, or of any Gov- 
ernment or State to control them — Theosophy and Chris- 
tian Science. 

They are dangerous, not because they have had an ancient 
history, but because they have had and are having a modern 
one. Christian Science is by far the more dangerous, 
though not the less dubious, of the two. It is danger- 
ous because of its successes. It is dangerous because 
its best exponents are really sincere and truthful and 
profoundly spiritual persons. But these are not al- 
ways its most successful practitioners. For, when all is 
said and done, and its misses and its failures are counted, 
its gains make quite a considerable u show." Its traffic 
in the world of appearances is, indeed, astounding, also 
its profit ; seeing that it ignores the known methods of pro- 
cedure, and the proved facts, and the ascertained sequences 
and connections of that world. With a mouthful of phrases 
and formulas, and a few ill-assorted bits of popular " phi- 
losophy," picked up haphazard, with an utter ignorance 
of what it calls " Western Science," it is trying to undo 
in a day the work of centuries, the elaborate and patient 
work of the most beneficent of all physical sciences. 

And it is succeeding. Not long ago, in a country vil- 
lage, I came on an innocent family of four persons. They 
were trying to get well there. The father's and the 
mother's health was impaired, and the two children's quite 
efficiently shattered by the effects of the scarlet fever they 
had had a year ago. They had had it owing to the view 
their neighbour held that, because Christian Science can 
cure nervous headaches and hysterical paralysis and take 
down inflammation, it can cure scarlet fever too, or at 
any rate can allow children displaying all the appearances 
of scarlet fever (scarlet fever itself not being a reality) 
to run loose about a city without damage to the public 
safety. And the neighbour is probably of that opinion 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 265 

still ; and when his children get diphtheria they will prob- 
ably be allowed to spread it abroad in the same way. But, 
though Christian Science despises appearances in the form 
of disease germs and the laws of nature, it does not despise 
them in the form of dollars and of goods. It is too much 
messed up with appearances altogether. It does not dis- 
criminate. It will not render unto Appearance the things 
that are Appearance's, and unto Reality the things that are 
Reality's. 

I find it hard to write fairly of Theosophy, possibly be- 
cause I have suffered from theosophists. I do not like 
their way of handling the Sacred Books of the East. I ob- 
ject to having the Bhagavad-Gita and the Sutta of all the 
Asavas thrown at my head, as if they had been portions of 
Scripture appointed for the day, and specially applicable 
to my unspiritual case. I hate it when a woman I disap- 
prove of tells me that if I would only extinguish all my 
desires I should attain Nirvana to-morrow. I know it. 
But I do not want to attain Nirvana quite so soon. When 
I am eating chicken and my host is eating lettuce, I resent 
his telling me that a vegetarian cannot endure the presence 
of a flesh-eater, but that he conceals his repulsion because 
he is holier than the flesh-eater. And I am really fright- 
ened when I am introduced to a female " adept " who can- 
not walk through a churchyard without seeing what goes 
on in the graves, and who insists on describing what she 
has seen. 

Surely there is something very wrong there ? 

Now there are theosophical Societies like the Quest So- 
ciety that are innocent, and there are theosophists like Mr. 
A. P. Sinnett and Mr. G. R. S. Mead who command the 
greatest admiration and respect ; but I would rather think 
of Mr. Sinnett and Mr. Mead as scholars and experts in 
strange religions than as theosophists at all. If I had to 
choose between Pragmatism and Theosophy I would with- 
out hesitation choose Pragmatism. 



266 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

But that there are " powers," some powers, is, I think, 
no longer in dispute. I am quite sure that, but for my 
will-not-to-be-healed, a Christian Scientist could heal me 
if I offered the appropriate disorder. I daresay the 
" powers " of Mr. Leadbeater and Mrs. Annie Besant, 
or their Mahatmas, could blast my career if I came un- 
der their influence. If a Bhikku should desire to ride 
cross-legged through the sky, I do not think that he will 
be able to do it, but he will probably be able to create an 
illusion of doing it, so strong that the illusioned will see no 
difference between the appearance and the reality. All 
these people are more or less adepts in the art of sug- 
gestion and auto-suggestion ; they have more or less control 
over whatever powers are involved in telepathy, clair- 
voyance, automatism, and mediumship. But their powers 
are not more interesting or wonderful than the powers of 
quite ordinary people who have never heard of a Mahatma, 
or else think it is the island ISTew York City is built on. 

For the most elementary power of telepathy and sug- 
gestion (which, I believe, include all the others) is, if you 
come to think of it, a very remarkable and significant 
thing; almost as remarkable and significant as dreaming. 
It means that the ordinary methods of communication by 
speech and sign are " transcended " ; that faith is literally 
" the substance of things not seen " (a Bhikku riding 
cross-legged through the sky would surely be a variety of 
such a substance) ; that, if it cannot move mountains, or 
even mole-hills, it can move molecules ; it can, within limits, 
break up and alter their chemical arrangements ; otherwise 
physical healing by suggestion could not occur. It looks 
as if thoughts flew about, and could be caught casually on 
the wing; only that things do not always happen in that 
haphazard way. There are certain clear and steady se- 
quences that point to a definite and deliberate agency ; they 
involve desire and design. The selves can apparently exert 



THE MW MYSTICISM 267 

an inward spiritual influence as strong as, or stronger 
than, an outside or material stimulus. 

Suggestion, then, seems to be best defined as the power 
that immaterial beings have to make psychic events hap- 
pen. In this sense we may say that it covers all the ground 
of Magic and of Mysticism and the Borderland. It must 
have been used deliberately in primitive ritual and in all 
the Mysteries. It accounts for all the " psychic phenom- 
ena " of Mysticism: the miracles, the visions, the ecstasies, 
the sense of Union. It probably accounts for the efficacy 
of prayer. Prayer is one of our oldest ancestral instincts 
and habits; it is therefore one of the strongest engines of 
suggestion at our service. 

But though it covers all the facts it does not account for 
all of them ; and it does not cover or account for itself. It 
does not account for the supreme fact — the choice of 
Ultimate Beality as the object of desire. It does not ac- 
count for the desire itself, the hunger and the thirst for 
Life, for New Life and more abundant Life, which is the 
driving motive of the mystic adventure. It does not ac- 
count for the gradual, steady sublimation of that desire, nor 
for the corresponding changes in the conception of its 
object. It does not account for the means by which it is 
brought into operation ; for the ascertained uniformity in 
the stages of the Mystic Way all the world over; a uni- 
formity which raises the practice of Mysticism from magic 
to a science and an art. It does not account — I know this 
statement will be challenged, but I believe it does not ac- 
count — for the peculiar certainty that comes, not always 
through illumination and contemplation, and not through 
vision or ecstasy, but in spite of them ; a certainty that is 
not part of the psychic phenomena at all, and that, so far 
as I know, both psychic phenomena and the suggestion that 
gives rise to them are powerless to produce. 



268 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

And it does not account for itself. When we have said 
that suggestion gives rise to psychic events, we do not know 
why, or even how it does so. We have not said from what 
centres or on what levels it is working. Apparently it can 
work from all the centres and on all the levels of our con- 
scious or subconscious life. If we say that its chief func- 
tion is to create illusion, we are very far from the truth. 
Its chief and highest function is to create reality; to 
heighten the sense and sharpen the perception of reality ; to 
restore the links with reality where they have been broken. 
Otherwise there could be no healing by suggestion. And 
the most important of its healing functions are the re- 
covery of the lost Will-to-live, and the joining up of psychic 
states abnormally dissociated. 

Now in detachment, the state of mystic dissociation from 
normal consciousness, we said that two ways were made 
open to the psyche : one looking backwards and downwards, 
on which it can go a long way with ease; and one going 
forwards and upwards, on which it can only go a little way 
with difficulty. 

And the psychic powers of the borderland can go up and 
down too. Suggestion can evoke the instincts and memo- 
ries of states past and forgotten. It can also invoke the in- 
stinct and the premonition of a state not attained. It 
cannot create Ultimate Reality, or the perception of it. 
But it would seem that it can create a state in which, for 
moments of most uncertain duration, Ultimate Reality is 
discerned. 

In Western Mysticism, above all, in Catholic Mysticism, 
the lower and the higher forms of suggestion alternate, and 
there is a dreadful tendency for the lower form to hold 
the field. And if the great mystics had not been the most 
marvellous analysers of their own states, we should have 
had no possible means of distinguishing in their case be- 
tween the two. 

Luckily their moments of certainty seldom, if ever, came 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 269 

when they were deliberately sought ; they came — as they 
come to every one who has ever known them — unsought, 
and unexpected and with a shock of surprise. In true 
mystic experience you may say the expected never hap- 
pens. 

Still, remembering the saints of the Salpetriere, and 
Lady Julian's morbidities, and Saint Teresa's " impetu- 
osities/' and all the terrifying and revolting amorous- 
ness of the religious mystic, we might suspect this cer- 
tainty if these revelations were all the record that we had 
of it. Not only all religious experience is full of it, but 
every poet, every painter, every musician knows the shock 
of contact with reality. The vision of absolute beauty 
while it lasts is actually a laying hold on eternal life. I 
would say every lover knows it, but that sexual passion is 
the source of our most profound illusion. Still, even the 
betrayed and disillusioned lover may know that in loving 
he found his own innermost reality; illusion was not in 
him, but in the perfidious heart of the beloved; while he 
loved he truly lived. Nothing can take from him that cer- 
tainty. The wrong of sexual treachery lies in the fact 
that it deprives the lover (for the time being) of life. 

And there is an even higher state of certainty than 
these. Almost every other hero knows it; the exquisite 
and incredible assurance, the positively ecstatic vision of 
Reality that comes to him when he faces death for the first 
time. There is no certainty that life can give that sur- 
passes or even comes anywhere near it. And the world has 
been full of these mystics, these visionaries, since August, 
1914. Sometimes I think they are the only trustworthy 
ones. How pure, how absolute is their surrender; how 
candid and untroubled their confession; how spontaneous 
and undefiled their witness. 

And see how they back up all the Others 

This is the kind of certainty we want to tide us over 



270 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

the straits where Western Mysticism often leaves us floun- 
dering. 

I say Western Mysticism, because in the Buddhist 
Sacred Books and in the Upanishads and the Vedanta, and 
in the Mysticism of Kabir, you do not find anywhere the 
same repulsive qualities. You enter a purer and a subtler 
air ; and the Light of Godhead, " das Fliessende Licht 
der Gottheit," does not flow; it is strong and very still. 

There are reasons, as we shall see, for this difference. 
The Western mind comes to Mysticism by a peculiarly 
dangerous and difficult path. For one thing, it came to it 
a bit too early. The art and science of it were perfected in 
Asia, if not before the first principles had been discovered 
in Europe and Asia Minor, at any rate long before they had 
had a chance to develop. The Christian Mystics seem 
never to have quite perfected the technique of the thing; 
and seldom to have achieved a perfect and a safe detach- 
ment. Admirable psychoanalysts as they were, they lacked 
that minute psychological theory and practice which the 
Indian seems undoubtedly to have possessed. They 
plunged into the dangerous adventure without adequate 
preparation, as one who should jump into the Atlantic with- 
out a safety-belt. In the language of modern phychology, 
they had not learned how to " sublimate their libidos." 

And this apparently was what the subtle Indian had 
learned before ever he set out on the adventure. The 
Western Mystic did not know, or had forgotten, that the 
desire of Life, even physical desire, is an indestructible 
and holy, though a dangerous thing. He suppressed physi- 
cal desire ; he stamped it down into the Unconscious ; and 
then, in a state of passivity or trance, he went down there 
after it, and was met by the resurgence of all his savage and 
ancestral memories. He retrogressed. He did not know 
that this would happen to him (he knew nothing at all or 
very little about the Unconscious) ; and every time it did 
happen he was agonized and astonished. But the Indian 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 271 

Mystic knew very well what would happen, and why it 
happened; and when he went travelling in the untrodden 
country he took good care to close the gates of the paths 
that led downwards. Sometimes they swung to of their 
own accord and the Christian mystic was safe. 

Still, there is a great gulf fixed between Eastern and 
Western Mysticism. Sometimes the Catholics bridge it, 
when they are metaphysical, which is seldom. But Julian 
of Norwich, for one, managed to get over. Her First 
Kevelation of Divine Love might have come straight from 
the heart of Asia. 

" In this same time our Lord shewed me a spiritual sight of 
His homely loving. 

" I saw that He is to us everything that is good and comfort- 
able for us: He is our clothing that for love wrappeth us, 
claspeth us, and all encloseth us for tender love, that He may 
never leave us; being to us all- thing that is good, as to mine 
understanding. 

" Also in this He shewed me a little thing, the quantity of an 
hazel-nut, in the palm of my hand; and it was as round as a 
ball. I looked thereupon with eye of my understanding, and 
thought: What may this be? And it was answered generally 
thus: It is all that is made. I marvelled how it might last, 
for methought it might suddenly have fallen to naught for lit- 
tle (ness). And I was answered in my understanding: It 
lasteth, and ever shall (last) for that God loveth it. And so 
All-thing hath the Being by the Love of God." {Revelations of 
Divine Love, p. 10.) 

Compare this with the well-known duologue in the 
Khandogya- Upanisliad. 

" ' Fetch me from thence a fruit of the Nyagrodha tree.' 

" ' Here is one, Sir/ 

" ' Break it.' 

" < It is broken, Sir.' 

" ' What do you see there ? ' 

" ' These seeds, almost infinitesimal.' 

" ' Break one of them.' 

" ' It is broken, Sir.' 

" ' What do you see there ? ' 



272 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

" ' Not anything, Sir.' 

" The father said : ' My son, that subtle essence which you 
do not perceive there, of that very essence the great Nyagrodha 
tree exists. 

" ' Believe it, my son. That which is the subtle essence, in it 
all that exists has its self. It is the True. It is the Self, and 
thou, O Svetaketu, art it.' " 53 

Observe what is happening. It is as if Mr. Barlow were 
instructing Sandford and Merton in the Hegelian Dialectic. 
Observe that it is said of Svetaketu that u he understood. 
Yea, he understood." The Indian takes to the Absolute 
like a duck to water. He may attain Deliverance before 
he is sixteen, instead of having to wait for it till he is sixty, 
when the passions cease from troubling of their own accord. 

In her clearest moments Julian is as devout a pantheist 
as any Indian mystic. She had even her pantheistic for- 
mula to match the " Thou art it " (Tat tvam asi) of the 
Upanishad. 

"I it am, I it am: I it am that is highest; I it am that 
thou lovest; I it am that thou enjoy est; I it am that thou 
servest; I it am that thou longest for; I it am that thou de- 
sirest ; I it am that thou meanest, I it am that is all." (Reve- 
lations of Divine Love, pp. 54, 55.) 

II 

We are very near the secret of the psychic backsliding 
and spiritual torment of the Christian mystic. They are 
due, not only to imperfect psychological technique, but to 
imperfect metaphysics. In spite of the refinements of 
tho Schoolmen, the Christian idea of God was never wholly 
sublimated by thought. It rests on a naif and obstinate 
dualism that resists the process. 

It is to the East that we must turn to find the highest and 
the purest form of Mysticism ; a Mysticism that has passed 
through the fire of metaphysical thinking, and is itself sub- 
limated. 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 273 

But before we compare Western with Eastern Mysti- 
cism, as I am going to do, to the disadvantage of the Chris- 
tian variety, three things must be kept well in sight. 

First, that the final goal of Christian Mysticism is not 
" experience," not vision, not ecstasy, but the Unitive 
Life, the life lived in union with Reality. Life lived, not 
merely contemplated ; a life of " fruition and activity/' 
lifted for ever above the powers of the Subconscious. Of 
this state Evelyn Underhill says that in it man's nature 

". . . has become conscious in all its parts, has unified itself 
about its highest elements. That strange, tormenting vision of 
a perfect peace, a joyous self -loss, annihilation in some mighty 
Life which over-passed his own, which haunts man through the 
whole course of his history, and finds a more or less distorted 
expression in all his creeds, a justification in all his ecstasies, 
is now traced to its source: and found to be the inevitable ex- 
pression of an instinct by which he recognised, though he could 
not attain the noblest part of his inheritance.' , (Mysticism, 
p. 520.) 

She denies on, I think, somewhat insufficient grounds, 
that this state was conspicuously attained in Eastern 
Mysticism. That is to say, in Eastern Mysticism that was 
not influenced by Christianity. 54 But the Christian apol- 
ogist has still to admit that in the West it was usually 
reached late in life, and that certain physical cessations 
may have contributed. However that may be, it is the end 
of " mystical ill-health." 

Again, the Christian saint brings to the quest for Eeality 
something that is not always found in mysticisms that have 
been highly sublimated by thought. 

Julian of Norwich says of her hazel-nut : 

"In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is 
that God madeth it; the second is that God loveth it; the third 
is that God keepeth it. But what is to me verily the Maker, 
the Keeper, and the Lover, I cannot tell." (Revelations of 
Divine Love, p. 10.) 

And she speaks for all her kindred. Her way is the way 



274 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

of the mystic Kabir, and of the Vaishnavists, the Human- 
ists of India. 

" Few/' says Kabir, " are the lovers who know the Be- 
loved. The devout seeker is he who mingles in his heart 
the double currents of love and detachment." 

Lastly, Mysticism itself is a thing of gradual develop- 
ment, and the Eastern and the Western forms of it are 
tending to approach, with the result that Pantheism is ab- 
sorbing Christian Humanism, to Humanism's gTeat gain. 

This tendency is so conspicuous in the modern literature 
of East and West, that it may be fairly called the New 
Mysticism. It has been, I think, not only an affair of in- 
fluence, but of the slow yet inevitable maturing of the West- 
ern mind. It is no food for sick souls; it has put the 
disease of asceticism behind it; it is a robust and joyous 
Mysticism, reconciled to the world. 

When Sir Rabindranath Tagore was over here, in the 
years before the War, he told us that the destiny of the 
East was " to spiritualize the West." Complacent west- 
erners smiled at the saying, as if the great poet had been 
offering to teach his grandmother an art that she had per- 
fected before he was born. Yet his was simply the calm 
statement of a truth. 

Still, if some of our poets and mystics had not gone 
before him, we should not have been as ready for him as we 
were. 

Before the publication of his translation of the One Hun- 
dred Poems of Kabir, his own Gitanjali stood almost 
alone, representing for many of us all that is purest and 
highest in Mysticism. Therefore, I venture to repeat here 
what I wrote of it four years ago. There is hardly a word 
of it that will not apply equally to the work of his fore- 
runner, Kabir. 

To the Western mind there is a gulf fixed between the 
common human heart and Transcendent Being. The 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 275 

European and the American, in their quest of Keality, are 
apt to be taken in by appearances; they do not readily 
make the great distinction. That is partly why, with the 
exception of the classics of Mysticism, the devotional poetry 
of the West, Catholic and Protestant alike, is so unsatisfy- 
ing. Most of it is written by people who are not poets. 
But the worst of it is that it is not supremely devotional. 
It does not deal directly with the Transcendent, but pro- 
ceeds, fervently indeed, but always by way of dogma and 
tradition, as it were by perpetual makeshifts, and through 
the most horrible tangle of material and carnal imagery, to 
a visionary Throne of Grace. You never seem to arrive. 
Your heart may be soothed by the assurance of atonement ; 
but your finer metaphysical hunger is left for ever unap- 
peased. 

But take these songs of Divine Love from the Gitdnjali: 

"In the deep shadows of the rainy July, with secret steps, 
thou walkest, silent as night, eluding all watchers. 

" The woodlands have hushed their songs, and doors are all 
shut at every house. Thou art the solitary wayfarer in this 
deserted street. Oh, my only friend, my best beloved, the gates 
are open in my house — do not pass by like a dream." 

" The day is no more, the shadow is upon the earth. It is 
time that I go to the stream to fill my pitcher. 

" I know not if I shall come back home. I know not whom I 
shall chance to meet. There at the fording in the little boat 
the unknown man plays upon his lute." 

In the poems of this mystic the world appears no longer 
in its brutality, its vehemence, its swift yet dense fluidity ; 
it is seized in the very moment of its passing, and fixed in 
the clarity and stillness of his vision. It is always the 
same everyday world, the dusty road, the deserted street, 
the solitary fording, " the bank in the shady lane " where 
li the yellow leaves flutter and fall." At the coming of the 
Unknown Traveller " the leaves rustled overhead ; the 



276 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

cuckoo sang from the "unseen dark, and perfume of babla 
flowers came from the end of the road." A world vivid to 
every sense, yet the stage of a supersensual drama, the scene 
of the divine adventure. So vivid and so actual is it, that 
only its strange fixity stirs in you the thrill of the super- 
sensual. 

And through this fixity, this stillness of rhythm and of 
mood, there is a mysterious trouble and excitement, an 
awful tension of expectancy. It is the stillness of intense 
vibration, of life inconceivably living, the ecstasy of su- 
preme passion consummated and consumed. 

There is nothing in the Western world to compare with 
these poems but the writings of those mystics who were 
also saints: Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas a Kempis, 
Saint Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, Saint Teresa, 
Saint Catherine of Genoa who said, " My Me is God, nor 
do I recognize any other Me, except my God Himself." 
( Vita e dottrina. ) Above all, Saint John of the Cross, in 
The Dark Night of the Soul: 

"Upon my flowery breast, 
Wholly for Him and save himself for none, 
There did I give sweet rest 
To my beloved one; 
The banners of the cedars breathed thereon ! " 

(Translation by Arthur Symons.) 

All these impassioned lovers of the Godhead use the 
same language, telling of the same unique experience ; and 
it is invariably the language of human passion; for the 
simple and sufficient reason that there is no other. At the 
same time, with the exception of Dante's Paradiso and 
Vita Nuova, it would be hard to find in all the poetry of 
Western mysticism a perfect parallel to the passion of the 
Gitanjali. There are few Western mystics who do not 
somewhere betray the restlessness that lies around their 
rest. Until the final attainment of the Unitive Life, their 
peace would seem to have been harder won, to be held 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 277 

more perilously, to be always on the point of passing; so 
vivid is the sense they give of effort, of struggle, of frantic 
desperation. There is a corresponding vehemence and 
violence in their language. Saint Teresa says of the state 
of the enraptured soul : " No consolation reaches it from 
heaven, and it is not there itself ; it wishes for none from 
earth, and it is not there either, but it is, as it were, cruci- 
fied between earth and heaven, enduring its passion." 

Saint John of the Cross speaks of an " intense and 
amorous impetus/' answering to Saint Teresa's " impetu- 
osities." 

Eor, as we have seen, the language of the Catholic 
mystic is often the language of sensuous, almost of 
sensual emotion; so voluptuous that it lends itself very 
easily to the interpretation of the profane. But it is im- 
possible to doubt the " spirituality " of these Bengali songs 
of Divine Love. They are at the very highest level of at- 
tainment in their kind. They have the serenity and purity 
of supreme possession. Mystic passion embraces while it 
transcends the whole range of human passion. Like 
human passion, it works through body, heart and soul. It 
is the soul and the heart of passion that you find in the 
Gitdnjali; its secret and invisible things, small and great ; 
all in it that is superb, inviolate, undying; all that is 
lowly, and most fragile; its impalpable, incommunicable 
moods, its evanescences, its dreams, its subtleties, its reti- 
cences and courtesies ; its fears and delicate shames. 

" I asked nothing from thee ; I uttered not my name to thine 
ear. When thou took'st thy leave I stood silent." 

There is no querulousness and no grossness of impa- 
tience, no restlessness in this passion of the expectant soul. 

And on the part of the pursuing God there are none of 
those impetuosities that overwhelmed Saint Teresa. He 
comes u with silent steps." He is the lover waiting in the 
shadows. He is the watcher by the bed, the solitary way- 



278 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

f arer in the deserted street, the traveller at the well ; he is 
Krishna, the lute-player, the " unknown man " playing in 
the little boat at the fording. I know nothing so per- 
suasive as the glamour of this Eastern stillness, nothing 
that evokes so irresistibly, so inevitably the sense of the 
Unseen. 

" There, where spreads the infinite sky for the soul to 
take her flight in, reigns the stainless white radiance. 
There is no day nor night, nor form nor colour, and never, 
never a word." 

Before this austerity and restraint all foregoing compari- 
sons break down. There is, through all their likeness, an 
unmistakable difference between those great Western mys- 
tics and Eabindranath Tagore. 

Their passion utters a more poignant lyrical cry. 
They experience a more violent rapture in union, and a 
deeper tragedy in separation. Nothing could well be far- 
ther from his spirit than their emotionalism. Individual 
temperament has no doubt something to do with it ; but it is 
not the whole secret. This tumult and tragic pain of theirs 
has its own law. It displays itself in proportion to their 
asceticism, to the violence of their rupture with the divine 
visible world. It is the outcome of the dualism inherent 
in Christianity. There never was a religion that promised 
so much and gave so little ; that kept man's soul in such an 
awful poise between heaven and hell ; that left his passion 
for God so agonized and unappeased. Its dualism, its 
asceticism, frustrates the longing of its saints. Their 
holiest ecstasies are troubled with the resurgence of the 
source it has polluted. 

To the devotee of a Creator inconceivably different, in- 
finitely remote and separate from his creation, the visible 
world is necessarily undivine, abhorrent and unholy. In 
renouncing the world the Eastern ascetic denies its real- 
ity. But the Christian, in the very act of renunciation, 
affirms its shocking independent entity. Thus his deliver- 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 279 

ance is never either physically or metaphysically complete. 
That is the Christian's tragedy. He cannot, without an 
agonizing struggle, get rid of the world that weighs on him ; 
whereas it is comparatively easy for the Oriental to divest 
himself, as it were, of his cosmic clothing. It is doubtful 
if any Eastern ascetic, Brahman or Buddhist, could feel 
the same furious hatred and horror of the world; seeing 
that to him the world, the whole visible universe, is at its 
worse no more than an illusion. You may refuse to be- 
come attached to an illusion, you may withdraw from it 
with every circumstance of profound repudiation ; but you 
cannot furiously hate and abhor a thing which, for you, 
has no real existence of its own. 

In the GUdnjali you will find none of this hatred and 
abhorrence, none, either, of this serene indifference and 
denial. 

"Deliverance is not for me in renunciation." ... "I will 
never shut the doors of my senses. The delights of sight and 
hearing and touch will bear thy delight." 

" What divine drink/' he cries, " would'st thou have, 
my God, from the overflowing cup of my life % " And 
again, echoing Kabir : 

" The same stream of life that runs through my veins night 
and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic meas- 
ures. 

" It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the 
earth in numberless blades of grass, and breaks into tumultuous 
waves of leaves and flowers." 

" Is it beyond thee," he asks, " to be glad with the glad- 
ness of this rhythm ? to be tossed and lost and broken in the 
whirl of this fearful joy ? " To him the life of God is an 
" abounding joy that scatters and gives up and dies every 
moment." The whole complexity of things, the veil of 
Maya, the illusion of the world, is simple and translucent to 
him, so simple and so translucent that Reality is neither 



280 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

hidden by it nor obscured. That wearing of the veil of 
illusion is the jest of the Divine Lover hiding himself from 
his beloved that he may be the more passionately desired. 

" It is he who weaves the web of this maya in evanescent hues 
of gold and silver, blue and green, and lets peep out through the 
folds his feet, at whose touch I forget myself." 

Everywhere in these poems there is this acceptance of 
humanity, this ecstasy of joy in movement and in beauty, 
this adoration of life. 

" Let all the strains of joy mingle in my last song — the joy 
that makes the earth flow over in the riotous excess of the grass, 
the joy that sets the twin brothers, life and death, dancing over 
the wide world, the joy that sweeps in with the tempest, shaking 
and waking all life with laughter, the joy that sits still with its 
tears on the open red lotus of pain, and the joy that throws 
everything it has upon the dust, and knows not a word." 55 

It looks at first sight as if this all-embracing mysticism 
were different in its very nature from the view of the 
Catholic recluse prisoned in his cell. And it has appar- 
ently even less affinity with Indian mysticism of the Pan- 
theistic type. And this is a little disconcerting. Surely, 
you say, there must be things in the Upanishads from 
which some at least of these poems are descended ? You 
take down your Upanishads and hunt through them ex- 
citedly for those things, but in vain; unless you are pre- 
pared to accept wholesale the interpretation of the in- 
genious Eamanuja, who contended that even in union with 
Brahma the individual self maintained its separate 
identity. And it is only now and again in the Gitan- 
jali that there comes any reverberation of the mystic 
words, " Tat tvam asi," " Thou art it," of those resonant 
and resplendent passages which proclaim the absolute, in- 
separable identity of all things, of all selves in the Great 
Self. 

Now, the metaphysician may deny or affirm that identity 
as his appetite or his instinct prompts him. Nothing can 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 281 

be more certain than that, for some mystics, the personal 
relation is an experience, a fact. All the same it, and 
the separation it implies, is an experience and a fact that 
begins and ends in their own individual consciousness. It 
is irreducible, indescribable, incommunicable. Meta- 
physically, it stands for nothing more nor less than that 
moment in which the human soul becomes conscious of it- 
self in God. The thing is duplex only in one aspect. 
Around it, continuing in it and transcending it, are all the 
unity, all the identity you can desire. The separation is 
not real; not absolute; any more than death or birth is; 
it is part of the illusion ; part of the great game ; " the hid- 
ing and seeking of thee and me." 

"It is the pang of separation that spreads throughout the 
world and gives birth to shapes innumerable in the infinite sky. 

" It is this sorrow of separation that gazes in silence all night 
from star to star and becomes lyric among rustling leaves in 
rainy darkness of July. 

" It is this overspreading pain that deepens into loves and de- 
sires, into sufferings and joys in human homes; and this it is 
that ever melts and flows in song through my poet's heart." 

To find Babindranath Tagore's true sources and affini- 
ties you must go back, first of all, to the fifteenth and six- 
teenth centuries ; to Kabir the mystic ; to the great Vaish- 
navists who were the Humanists of India; to Chandidas 
the poet ; to Chaitanya Devi, the God-intoxicated saint and 
seer. But going back further still, as far back as you can 
go, you find this naif personal attitude in the Vedic 
Hymns. The ancient Eishis, as lamentably as any Chris- 
tian, felt " self " to be separated from their deity or 
deities by the fact of sin. It was those who came after 
them, the more philosophic Eishis of the Upanishads, the 
Buddhists who came after them and the expert meta- 
physicians of the Vedanta, who reversed this view and 
found sin in the illusion of separation. And all the later 
mystic poetry of India, from Kabir onwards, springs from 



282 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

the conflict and reconciliation between that immemorial 
feeling of separation and that profound and supersensual 
certainty of oneness. This indeed is the source of all the 
mysticism that ever was. Only in India the feeling of 
separation is the baffling thing. The supersensual cer- 
tainty is taken for granted, while in Christianity it is all 
the other way. In India it is simply a question of whether 
you are going to agree, say, with the ingenious Ramanuja 
that the individual soul preserves its identity in union ; or 
with the learned Sankaracharya that it has never had any 
separate identity to lose; or with the poets, who are the 
seers of Reality, that it may have identity and lose it, and 
recover it and lose it again. For there is always this 
third alternative. 

It is clear that what the mystics are seeking is trans- 
cendent identity. There are three who, by their double 
genius of passion and of insight, have the right to speak 
for all of them. 

One is Julian of Norwich. 

" Till I am Substantially oned to Him, I may never have full 
rest nor very bliss: that is to say, till I be so fastened to him 
that there is right nought that is made betwixt my God and me." 
{Revelations of Divine Love, p. 10.) 

One is Rabindranath Tagore. 

And one is the greatest of them all — Kabir. 

Kabir is a test case. Before the appearance of the 
One Hundred Poems (translated and edited by Rabin- 
dranath Tagore and Evelyn Underhill), the only Kabir 
that I could lay my hands on was a book of select passages, 
translated and edited by a Christian missionary. 

I don't suggest that the missionary " did anything " 
to Kabir. Still, the repudiators of Pantheistic Monism 
have used Kabir freely as a proof that Christianity had 
" spiritualized " India ; and when this was all we had of 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 283 

him it was possible to admit that there might be some- 
thing in it. At least it was possible to give the dualists the 
benefit of a doubt. 

I find that I gave it them myself in 1913, when I 
could write this sort of thing: 

"Kabir, conscious of the separation, conceives union as a 
mingling in which the soul is certainly^ [ !] not lost. ' The soul 
(atma) and the Great Soul (Par am Atma) for many ages re- 
mained apart; the true Guru (teacher) came as a dealer 
(dallah, middleman) and made of them a beauteous mixture.' 
' The power that cannot be described, the form that imparts 
life, whoever becomes one with him (as milk with water) that 
man, says Kabir to Dharm Dass, Kali cannot destroy.' ' Thou 
art the ocean ; I am the fish of the water,' he says, ' I dwell in 
the water, without the water I am done for.' But he does not 
say he is a dewdrop and that he slips into the shining sea. And 
though he protests ' Whatever I did, you did ; I did nothing my- 
self; should men say I, did it, it was in your strength that it 
was done,' he makes it clear that he preserves his separate iden- 
tity all the same." 

The champions of Christian Dualism are welcome to all 
they can get out of Kabir's fish, and his milk, and his mid- 
dleman ; and to all they can get out of any other image he 
may use to express his relation to the Absolute. I cannot 
conceive how they can read the rest of the Hundred Poems 
and not see that India has absorbed him body and soul. 
He has the true intransigeance of the convert. He is 
closer, far closer than Tagore — to the pure metaphysical 
Monism of the Svetasvatara-TJpanishad. His mysticism 
is only free from metaphysics because it has passed 
through the last fires of thought. It is utterly sublimated. 

Take the least metaphysical and most purely poetic of 
the Hundred Poems: 

XII 

" Tell me, O Swan, your ancient tale, 
From what land do you come, O Swan? to what shore will 
you fly ? 



284 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

Where would you take your rest, O Swan, and what do you 

seek? 

" Even this morning, O Swan, awake, arise, follow me ! 
There is a land where no doubt nor sorrow have rule: where 

the terror of Death is no more. 
There the woods of spring are a-bloom, and the fragrant scent 

' He is I ' is borne on the wind. 
There the bee of the heart is deeply immersed, and desires 

no other joy." 

Again : 

" The creature is in Brahma, and Brahma is in the creature : 

they are ever distinct; yet ever united. 
He Himself is the tree, the seed, and the germ. 
He Himself is the flower, the fruit, and the shade. 
He Himself is the sun, the light and the lighted. 
He Himself is Brahma, creature, and Maya. 
He Himself is the manifold form, the infinite space. 
He is the breath, the word, and the meaning. 
He Himself is the limit and the limitless, and beyond both 

the limit and the limitless is He, the Pure Being. 
He is the Immanent Mind in Brahma and in the creature. ,, 

(vn.) 

" He is immersed in all consciousness, all joys and all sorrows ; 
He has no beginning and no end; 
He holds all within his bliss." (xxvi.) 

" Before the Unconditioned, the Conditioned dances. 
* Thou and I are one ! ' His trumpet proclaims." (xlv.) 

" The water-filled pitcher is placed upon water, it has water 
within and without. 
It should not he given a name, lest it call forth the error of 
dualism." (xlvi.) 

(What could possibly be plainer ?) 

LXXX 

" The true Name is like none other name ! 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 285 

The distinction of the Conditioned from the Unconditioned 
is but a word : 

The Unconditioned is the seed, the Conditioned is the flower 
and the fruit. 

Knowledge is the branch, and the Name is the root. 

Look and see where the root is : happiness shall be yours when 
you come to the root. 

The root will lead you to the branch, the leaf, the flower, and 
the fruit: 

It is the Encounter with the Lord, it is the attainment of bliss, 
it is the reconciliation o± the Conditioned and the Un- 
conditioned." 

Evelyn Underhill points out in her Introduction that 
the mystic intuition recognizes " a universe of three orders : 
Becoming, Being, and that which ' More than Being,' 
i.e. God." 

It is well said. And yet I confess I don't see how the 
haters of Monism can, without blushing, quote Kabir any 
longer in support of their contention; nor how the apolo- 
gists for Christianity can conjure a Trinity out of him. 
His world of " Becoming " is surely the world of Maya, 
of Illusion. And the world of Illusion, like Dr. McTag- 
gart's Absolute, is " not a Person." 

As for " the error of Dualism " — it may have touched 
the ingenious Bamanuja; but it certainly does not seem to 
have contaminated Kabir. In his world, discussions as to 
individuality lost, or individuality preserved have little 
meaning. 

in 

Now it is quite clear that in the classics of Mysticism 
we are dealing not only with a peculiar kind of experience, 
but with a peculiar kind of genius. And, again, having 
made all allowance for the influence of " mystical ill- 
health," the lover of literature must protest against the 
grossness of the interpretations that have been brought to 
these texts. The writings of the great mystics are not all 
charged with " unsublimated libido." 



286 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

I do not see how we can deny that Julian of Norwich 
has the imagination and the style of a great poet, as well 
as the temperament of a saint. Nobody but a poet could 
have conceived such blending of loveliness in horror. To 
bring nothing but the literalism of the pathologist to bear 
on her Revelations is absurd. Even in the worst instances 
— I am thinking of certain utterances of Gertrude of 
Eisleben, 56 of the Blessed Angela of Eoligno, and of 
Saint Teresa herself — there is a perpetual striving after 
something stronger than the soul's passive blessedness, and 
higher than its voluptuous spiritual ecstasy. This excess 
of feeling demands and finds expression ; now and then it 
flashes into metaphysical intuition; again it crystallizes 
into some perfect and transparent phrase; and you have 
the beginning of a naif art; and where art is there is 
sublimation. Thus the Blessed Angela says that the 
Divine Love " came towards me after the manner of a 
sickle. Not that there was any actual and reasonable 
likeness, but when first it appeared unto me it did not give 
itself unto me in such abundance as I expected, but part 
of it was withdrawn. Therefore do I say after the man- 
ner of a sickle." The Blessed Angela may or may not be 
deceived as to the spiritual nature of her experience ; how- 
ever that may be, two things are clear: that she is using 
the language of poetic imagination, and that she is strug- 
gling with almost fantastic honesty for precision of lan- 
guage and of thought. It seems to me that, whatever their 
spiritual value may be, such utterances should be judged, 
not with the crude literalism of her critics and of her 
admirers, but with the liberal judgment accorded to works 
of the imagination. 

But no. Professor Jung finds megalomania in an an- 
cient Egyptian text, the Hymn of the ascending soul, pro- 
claiming its unity with God. 

" I am the God Atum, I who alone was, 
I am the Cod Re at his first splendour, 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 287 

I am the great God, self -created, God of Gods, 
To whom no other God compares." 

• •••••••• 

" My impurity is driven away, and the sin which was in me 
is overcome. I washed myself in those two great pools of water 
which are in Heracleopolis, in which is purified the sacrifice of 
mankind for the great God who -abideth there." 

" Thou, who standest before me, stretch out to me thy hands ; 
it is I, I am become one of thee. Daily am I together with 
my Father Atum." 57 

He finds resurgent lust in the Brahman's vision of the 
Absolute. 

" The person (purusha) of the size of a thumb, stands in the 
middle of the Self, as lord of the past and the future, and 
henceforward fears no more. This is that. 

" That person, of the size of a thumb, is like a light without 
smoke, lord of the past and future, he is the same to-day and 
to-morrow. This is that." (Katha-Upanishad, ii. 4.) 

"The person (purusha), not larger than a thumb, dwelling 
within, always dwelling in the heart of man, is perceived by the 
heart, the thought, the mind; they who know it become immor- 
tal." (Svetasvatara-Upanishad, iii. 13.) 

Professor Jung's interpretation of these passages is en- 
tirely Freudian. 58 

At this rate there is no reason why he should not find 
megalomania and resurgent lust in Dedekind's and Can- 
tor's theories of the Infinite, or in Mr. Bertrand Russell's 
pursuit of the Fourth Dimension, on the grounds that they 
involve " generation of series." 

We have admitted that Psychoanalysis had much to say ; 
but when it has said it, the secret of mystic passion and of 
mystic certainty remain alike insoluble. Its criticism 
rests on the assumption that ends have the same form as 
origins ; which is contrary not only to evolution, but to the 
psychoanalyst's own pet theory of sublimation. 



288 A DEFENCE OE IDEALISM 

But this arraignment of Mysticism need not concern us 
any more. It only applies to those manifestations that 
belong to the transition periods of its childhood and its 
youth. Where they persist, they persist by way of sur- 
vival or reaction or disease, and they are doomed to dis- 
appear. 

For if we are right in supposing that what is super- 
normal consciousness now will be normal consciousness 
some day, we may expect its perfection to be reached by 
forgetfulness of its old labour and effort, unconscious- 
ness of the very practice that will have made it perfect. 
Pantheistic Mysticism begins where Mysticisms that are 
not pantheistic end. It takes for granted that, as between 
God and the world, the Absolute and the finite selves, 
there is no separation. For all her Catholic sympathies, 
Evelyn Underhill is a pantheist at heart. Witness her 
" Immanence " and " Theophanies." 

" I come in the little things 
Saith the Lord. 
Yea! on the glancing wings 
Of eager birds, the softly pattering feet 
Of furred and gentle beasts, I come to meet 
Your hard and wayward heart. In brown bright eyes 
That peep from out the brake, I stand confest. 
On every nest 

Where feathery Patience is content to brood 
And leaves her pleasure for the high emprize 
Of motherhood there doth my Godhead rest." 

And M. Bergson, though his logic lands him sometimes 
in an upsetting Dualism, is a good pantheist at heart. 
He sees as the mystic sees, that the Elan Vital is the 
energy of one Being which makes matter its means of 
manifestation, its vehicle, its tool. He sees that the proc- 
ess of Becoming is a spiritual process of ascension. 

Thus, though we cannot say what the Mysticism of the 
future will be, we may be pretty sure what it will not be. 



THE NEW MYSTICISM 289 

It will not be sickly ; it will not be morbid and hysterical, 
or sentimental. In exchanging God the Eather for God 
the Absolute Self, it will have lost that irresponsible de- 
pendence which has kept men and women for centuries in 
a pathetic infancy. Sooner or later the mystic has to grow 
up like other people. He will know that he fulfils the 
absolute purpose best by trying to become, as far as pos- 
sible, a self-determined being. He knows already that, if 
" auto-suggestion " is anything at all, it is self-determina- 
tion. 

And he will not be violent. " The Kingdom of Heaven 
suffereth violence until now, and the violent take it by 
force." That was where the imperfect mystic made his 
great mistake. Just as primitive man desired to get by 
magic physical things that would have come to him with- 
out it of their own accord, in due season, so the imperfect 
mystic desires to get spiritual things by mysticism that will 
come to him without it of their own accord in due season. 
The savage is trying to force Nature's hand. The im- 
perfect mystic is trying to force God's hand. 

Not so the accomplished lover of the Absolute. His 
passion may be overpowering and importunate, but not 
its method. He will not forestall its perfect consumma- 
tion by one hour. The more certain he is, the more he 
can afford to wait. 

" Kabir says : .. . . stay where you are, and all things 
shall come to you in time." 



CONCLUSIONS 

It is clear that we have to choose between some form of 
Pluralism and Monism. 

There is nothing new in this. It is the old problem and 
the old choice that has lain before Philosophy in the be- 
ginning ; but with this difference, that whereas Philosophy 
had no valid grounds for a conclusion as long as it travelled 
on the " high priori road/' it is now in a rather better 
position for bringing its conclusions to the test of expe- 
rience. 

It is not, and it cannot be, a question of certainty. No 
reasonable person demands certainty at this time of day. 
The utmost he is entitled to demand is a certain balance 
of probabilities. Perhaps not even that. Perhaps only 
here a balance and there a chance, and there, again, an 
off-chance, a bare possibility. 

So, instead of asking Which conclusion is the more 
certain? we may only ask Which hypothesis, Pluralism 
or Monism, is the more likely, the more in keeping with 
the facts? 

This is not a pragmatic question, nor is it a pragmatic 
test. It is not to be confused with the demand that meta- 
physical truth should square with the requirements of 
human conduct. By the " facts " I do not mean merely 
the facts of life. I mean the sum total of our knowledge, 
or knowledges up to date. Our knowledge of conscious- 
ness and our knowledge of knowledge must take their 
place in the collection, together with our knowledge of 
the so-called external world. 

The facts, therefore, will not all stand on an equal foot- 

290 



CONCLUSIONS 291 

mg. The ultimate appeal must always be to the knowl- 
edge of knowledge. 

If the facts favour one hypothesis more than the other, 
then we may ask further, which hypothesis has the better 
metaphysical support? If we are lucky enough to get a 
reasonable conformity on all heads, then and not till then 
we may ask further which hypothesis, Pluralism or 
Monism, is on the whole more satisfying to collective 
human emotion and to the moral sense ? And we must 
be very careful that by these we do not mean " more satis- 
fying to me/' 

At first sight it looks as if Pluralism had all the facts 
on its side. It can point to a universe in which the earth 
is a comparatively insignificant dot on a field covered 
with several million heavenly bodies, a physical universe 
of apparently unending multiplicity, of apparently un- 
ceasing change and flux. It can break up the flux itself 
into an infinity of elements of which you can only say 
that each is where it is at the instant when it is. Suppos- 
ing matter to be made up of an infinite number of atoms 
(or, if you like, of electrons), it cannot be said with posi- 
tive certainty that any atom yet discovered is ultimate 
and indivisible. Pluralism can refer us to a world of 
selves, of psychic entities, whose chief distinction is that 
they repel and repudiate each other, besides harbouring a 
host of conflicting instincts, desires, and memories, whose 
presence makes for continual disruption ; consciousness it- 
self abounding with irreconcilable multiplicities. Pore- 
most among these are pain and evil, which outrage every 
just and compassionate and holy instinct of the selves. 

Pluralism can even insist with considerable plausibility 
on a final and irreconcilable dualism between these two 
worlds. 

And its very Logic, its knowledge of knowledge, is 
atomistic. 



292 A DEFENCE OE IDEALISM 

And yet the Pluralist himself must admit that this is 
an inadequate and superficial view of the facts. The 
more we explore this multiplicity, the more it reveals the 
secret of its unity. And this unity is not simply imposed 
on multiplicity by immediate consciousness and by the 
laws of thought. It is not only a question of the way we 
are obliged to think things, but of the way things behave. 
Every generalization of physical science, and every corre- 
lation of physical laws, amounts to a plain statement that 
within the range of the generalization the order of things 
is one. The law of conservation of energy is nothing if 
not a confession that, as far as the physical world goes, 
incorrigible multiplicity and difference do not obtain. It 
would even seem that, ultimately, the entire physical 
world is definable in terms of energy. And if the ulti- 
mate constitution of matter is invisible, imponderable, im- 
palpable to any sense (its density disappeared long ago) ; 
if all the grossness, all the heaviness and hardness, all the 
intractable lumpiness of matter, all its so-called material 
qualities are not to be found in it, but only in our con- 
sciousness of it, we need no longer juggle with terms that 
are so interchangeable. The realist and idealist are both 
agreed that there is no physical It behind those qualities. 
And unless we are satisfied that he is right in contending 
that they exist, " on their own/' we may as well say straight 
out that these two worlds, anyhow, are one; and that the 
ultimate reality of " matter " is spiritual energy. 

We have seen that it is his implacable moral conscious- 
ness that urges the Pragmatist to plant his Pluralism in 
the very heart of reality itself; and to insist that there is 
no ultimate spiritual energy, one in many forms, but that 
there are as many energies as there are forms, and that 
spiritual energy is only one of them. I hope it has also 
been seen how his moral consciousness goes back on him, 
and lands him in the oneness he abhors. 

And in the world of living organisms, before a moral 



CONCLUSIONS 293 

consciousness was ever heard of, we saw that the Life- 
Force, the Will-to-live, revealed itself in the process of 
evolution as one indestructible energy, and one desire 
striving for fulfilment and for sublimation, an energy 
made manifest in such forms and in such a manner as to 
declare its spiritual source. We saw that the mere phy- 
sical process was only intelligible if we admitted the 
psychic factors of desire and design. We saw the growth 
and building up and shaping of the organism by the 
psyche for its own ends. We saw that desire and design 
and performance were only intelligible if we presupposed 
a self that is something over and above its memory. We 
saw that biology, so far from merging the individual self 
in its own ancestral heritage, presupposes its independ- 
ence and its supreme importance as a factor in heredity 
itself. 

We found confirmation of this view, where we least ex- 
pected it, in the facts of psychopathology and the results 
of psychoanalysis. They showed us one indestructible 
primal energy at work in all the functions of the psyche. 
They showed the persistent symbols of its presence 
throughout the whole region of the " unconscious." They 
showed that all aberrations and perversions are rever- 
sions, the turning back of the individual on the ancestral 
paths by which he came. They also showed by what 
processes of sublimation he asserts himself against the 
backward pull of the instincts that tend to merge him 
with the race. 

Again, Psychology, besides endorsing the biological 
evidence, showed us that consciousness is a unity that 
could hardly be if there were no self over and above con- 
sciousness, unaffected by its multiplicity, its change and 
flux. We found that the self is not passive, and that 
thought has its own energetic way of dealing with the 
stuff of consciousness; that it multiplies and divides, 
makes finite and makes infinite, and that of all that it 



294 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

scatters it gathers again. Apart from the work of 
thought, we found that the stuff of consciousness is not 
divided; that it is given in a continuous unity; that its 
sequences overlap; and that states of consciousness have 
more than sequence; as William James says, they have 
" thickness." And we saw that if anything ever was one 
it is this thickness. 

We found that here our choice lay between Animism 
and Psychophysical Parallelism. We saw how the Dual- 
ism of the parallelist broke down under an examination 
of the psychophysical facts. 

We also found that Psychology was powerless to solve 
its own problems, and flung us back on Metaphysics. We 
had then to choose between some form of Pluralism and 
Monism. We were obliged to dismiss all a priori argu- 
ments for Monism as worthless, so long as they remained 
unsupported by actual experience, and so long as they 
left whole tracts of experience out of their account. But 
so far as they explain experience, and so far as experience 
corroborates them, they are not to be lightly set aside. 
After all, our way of thinking justifies itself. Where 
the necessities of thought agree with the necessities im- 
plied by the behaviour of consciousness and the behaviour 
of things, they must count as real necessities. Our prob- 
lem then was: Is unity or is boundless multiplicity the 
supreme necessity of thought ? 

Comparing one philosophical system with another, we 
thought we saw that the end and goal of the metaphy- 
sical quest has been mainly one ultimate principle, rather 
than two or more ultimate principles. We found this 
secret passion for the Absolute and the One breaking out 
in the very Dualisms that repudiated it; and we traced 
the root and the cause of all philosophical dilemmas to 
the search for oneness and for ultimate reality in the 
wrong place. Pragmatism and Humanism stood out as 



CONCLUSIONS 295 

the great exceptions. If you cannot say that they have 
looked for ultimate reality in the wrong place, since they 
were not looking for it at all, they have looked on at the 
usurpation of its place and power. And Pragmatism be- 
trayed its own inherent dilemmas. 

On the balance of the evidence before us, we were 
driven to the conclusion that the ultimate reality of 
things and the ultimate reality of consciousness is one; 
and that this one reality is Spirit. 

We might have rested there, complacent and happy, but 
for the New Realism whose violence took our kingdom of 
heaven by storm. 

And so our problem narrowed itself down. We had to 
choose between our Spiritualistic Monism and this par- 
ticular brand of Eealistic Pluralism. 

We distinguished between the premisses and the conclu- 
sions of the New Eealism ; between its science and its sys- 
tem; and again between its construction and its critique. 
We found that while much of its critique must be of en- 
during value in philosophy, it applied rather to the 
pseudo-monisms than to ours. We found that, though its 
foundations were sure as the axioms of pure mathematics 
and of Analytic Logic could make them, the superstruc- 
tures reared on this imposing base were somewhat lacking 
in coherence and solidity. We found that in applying 
the axioms and conclusions of the mathematical and phy- 
sical sciences as a test of the reality of phenomena, it has 
brought us no nearer to the root of the question in debate 
— the nature of ultimate reality. And though we were 
prepared to admit it was within its rights in renouncing 
the quest of ultimate reality, we found that it failed to 
establish its negative conclusions beyond the reach of 
doubt; and that its positive conclusions yielded contra- 
dictions every bit as compromising (to it) as those it un- 
dertook to solve. 



296 A DEFENCE OE IDEALISM 

We also saw that it was possible to state tlie principle 
of Spiritualistic Monism in terms which at any rate ex- 
clude contradiction. 

Thus we conceded that, as a restatement of mathemati- 
cal and logical first principles, the New Kealism is almost 
as impregnable as it professes to be. But, in spite of its 
combined air of certainty and scientific caution, we could 
not admit that as a system of metaphysics it justifies its 
existence better than other philosophies that plunge. 

Therefore my imaginary monist refused to relinquish 
the principle he (perhaps rashly) stakes his all on. He 
refused to be driven from his position by the multiplicity 
of anything that Pluralism, or Science for that matter, 
has to show. He is not going to be scared out of it by the 
bluff of physical Atomism. He does not care how many 
elements are involved in magnetic force, or how many 
tricks the physicist's mysterious electrons play him. 
Why should he ? Once his Absolute starts the business 
of appearing, a little multiplicity more or less cannot 
break it. He would not be greatly distressed if the law 
of conservation of energy were exploded to-morrow, as it 
very well may be. It does not matter to him how many 
appearances and laws of appearances there may be — 
two or three million, or an infinite number. If anything, 
he prefers an infinite number, because it provides him 
with the reassuring contradictions he is looking for. 

It will be said of my monist that he cannot clear him- 
self of one reproach : from first to last he is only juggling 
with the unity of consciousness, which his opponents do 
not admit to be a unity at all. And he must admit, 
not that he has helped himself to the unity of conscious- 
ness, but that the unity of consciousness has helped him 
considerably. It is only not a unity if you adopt the ex- 
treme realistic theory of knowledge, which he thinks he 
has shown good reason for repudiating. It is the only 



CONCLUSIONS 297 

thorough-going unity he knows. He finds this unity, not 
in or among his states of consciousness, shaken about with 
them in the same bag, as it were, but in the irreducible, 
ultimate fact of selfhood. He finds that the Self resists 
all attempts to analyse it into the separate states or stages 
of its own consciousness ; that it is more than the sum of 
these states ; more, that is to say, than consciousness. 

To this Something More he gives the name of Spirit; 
for the reason that while, in ultimate analysis, matter 
may be resolvable into terms of immaterial being; spirit, 
or self, is not by any means so resolvable into terms of 
matter. 

Before Monism can work it must have a principle which 
shall be both static and dynamic. But as long as the 
monist was tied to his bare epistemology, he could find no 
means of defining " Thought," so as to include in it 
things that are not " thoughts." To say that " Thought 
thinks itself " is not enough. From the unsubstantial 
forms of its thinking it can build no bridge from its own 
world to the world where things are and are done. But 
Spirit can be supposed to do things. He can define it as 
that which thinks, and wills, and energizes in one un- 
divided act. His principle is as static and dynamic as he 
pleases. 

If he is asked whether he has any precise conception of 
the principle to which he gives the name of Spirit, he 
can at least answer that his definition amounts to a fairly 
precise conception. 

If he is asked if he has any conception at all of the 
ultimate nature of Self or Spirit, he can retort that he 
has no more conception of the ultimate nature of Self or 
Spirit than the new realist has of the ultimate constitu- 
tion of matter, or of consciousness, or of universals; and 
he claims the realist's right not to go behind reality; but 
to regard it as itself ultimate and irreducible. 

If he is asked how he proposes to justify his leap from 



298 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

the presumably finite and relative self or spirit, of which 
he has a more or less precise conception, to the Self or 
Spirit he has declared to be absolute, he must own that he 
is not justified in making any leap. He can only say that 
in the unity of his own consciousness the term spirit covers 
will and action and passion, as well as thought and sense. 
He finds that love and thought and will behave as ener- 
gies, as motive powers, or even as causes, within the unity 
of his consciousness. He has every reason for concluding 
that they behave as energies and motive powers or even as 
causes in other consciousnesses besides his own. And he 
sees no reason why they should not behave with greater 
energy and motive power and causal efficiency within 
greater consciousnesses than his or other people's. He 
finds that the behaviour of this finite and relative con- 
sciousness of his, its knowledge and its relation to its 
knowledge, are inexplicable without the assumption of an 
infinite and absolute consciousness, as the ground of all its 
knowing. He finds that the very existence of his self is 
inexplicable without the assumption of an absolute, self- 
subsisting Self, as the ground of its existence and his real 
Self. And he sees no reason why the spiritual energies 
of such a Self should not be equal to the evolution of such 
manifestations as this spectacular universe and its spec- 
tators. 

In the matter of manifestation he knows that, if his 
own self is to know itself and to make itself known, it 
must think and feel and will and act through forms and 
forces that are called material. And so he sees no reason 
why the Absolute Spirit, his real Self, desiring to know 
itself, and to make itself known, should not manifest it- 
self also through forms and forces that are called material. 

He sees no reason why not; and nobody has yet ad- 
vanced any really valid and satisfactory reason why 
not. 

If this is to juggle, he juggles. 



CONCLUSIONS 299 

No really valid reason why not. But one apparently 
valid reason, which is the crux of Pantheism: the alleged 
absurdity of a reality knowing itself and making itself 
known through what is, after all, an endless procession of 
spectacular illusions. At this rate, it may be said, the 
Absolute is juggling, too. And there is a sort of general 
feeling that it is beneath its dignity to juggle. 

Now it is pretty certain, judging by appearances, that 
if the Absolute had stood on its dignity it would never 
have appeared at all. It is also certain that, so far as 
there is any meaning in this objection, it is our sense of 
dignity that is offended. And our sense of dignity is 
part of the illusion. 

Still, a talent for producing endless illusions about it- 
self does seem incompatible with a veracious Reality. 
We might, of course, credit Reality with the utmost 
veracity of its absolute and transcendent Self, and charge 
all the illusion to the account of the finite selves. But 
the trouble is that, on the theory, Reality is also supposed 
to be appearing to itself, getting to know itself, introduc- 
ing itself to itself, as it were, through an endless round of 
cosmic " At Homes." 

If the round is really endless, it cannot, any more than 
a finite self, succeed in completely making its own ac- 
quaintance. And the pluralist has every right to ask the 
monist what he is going to do about it. 

Now, I think, it must be owned that this endless pro- 
cession, or series of manifestations does land the monist 
in a very awkward predicament, if he really means that a 
complete knowledge of every single one of its finite mani- 
festations in time is necessary to the Self's absolute 
knowledge of itself. The only thing he can do is not to 
take that line. His only possible reply is, that on Real- 
ism's own showing, knowledge depends on universals, not 
on simple enumeration of particulars; and that, if it is 
not necessary for a finite self to reel off a list of all the 



300 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

particulars it knows, before it can be said to know any- 
thing, it must be still more unnecessary for an absolute 
and infinite Self to know every single one of its mani- 
festations before it knows Itself. On the contrary, just 
because it is absolute, as well as infinite, it must be sup- 
posed to know itself completely at each instant of its 
manifestation. 

There are, however, considerable difficulties about an 
Absolute Reality that insists on publishing itself, as it 
were, in serial instalments. But I think they must be 
charged to the account of the finite selves, who are obliged 
to " take in " their Absolute in serial form. They arise 
from our persistent habit of regarding the Self's knowl- 
edge of the finite as a finite knowledge, and its passage 
through time as part of its eternity. 

Practically the reverse problem is presented by the 
existence of evil. The pragmatist complains that you are 
a taking a moral holiday " if you refuse to regard such 
things as badness, and nastiness, and silliness, and ugli- 
ness, and a kick in the ribs, as so many knock-you-down 
arguments against Monism. 

Well, you have not got to take a moral holiday to see 
that they are staggering facers for the realist, who regards 
them as eternal and immutable realities. The realist 
having, apparently, no other outlet for his cosmic emo- 
tion, grows almost lyrical over his incorruptible world of 
the universals, enduring for ever and ever, out of space, 
out of time, in their stainless, intangible perfection. But, 
if goodness, and niceness, and wisdom, and loveliness, and 
the absence of a kick in the ribs, are realities that endure 
for ever and ever, so are badness and nastiness and the 
rest of it. I do not know how the realist contrives to have 
his emotion. I suppose he just thinks of Beauty and 
Goodness sitting up there, and tries to forget that his 
wife's temper and the kitchen saucepan are sitting there, 



CONCLUSIONS 301 

too. He cannot conjure them out of his universe by any 
juggling. They are absolute. He has said it. 

What is even worse, every particular instance of bad- 
ness and nastiness and silliness is absolute too. The real- 
ist may say that silliness is not silly, but what he means 
is that it is something far sillier. 

But the monist saves the essential cleanness and sanity 
of the universe in denying that nastiness and silliness and 
a kick in the ribs subsist, as such, and as realities, in the 
transcendent life of Spirit. He denies that the Absolute 
is obliged to listen for ever and ever to the stories that 
Brown tells Robinson when Mrs. Robinson has left the 
room. If, in the infinite reverberations of the universe, 
there endure infinite echoes of Brown's story, they are 
echoes that only finite and incarnate spirits catch. 

And if you insist that, as immanent in the finite and 
all too incarnate spirit of Eobinson, the Absolute has 
heard Brown's story and enjoyed it; and that, as imma- 
nent in the finite spirit of Brown, it has also told it, the 
monist will have no objection; provided you add that, as 
immanent in the person of Mrs. Robinson, it has disap- 
proved of it (and of Brown, and of Robinson) severely. 

He might go farther and affirm that there is justifica- 
tion for the apparently incredible and inexcusable exist- 
ence of Brown and Robinson. Light is thrown on their 
mystery by the existence of Mrs. Robinson, whose spir- 
itual beauty is set off and made more desirable by con- 
trast, whose spiritual strength grows by exercise in the 
gymnasium of spiritual adversity that marriage to Robin- 
son provides for her. 

"Why rushed the discords in but that harmony should be 
prized ? " 

That — the dependence of goodness upon evil, the en- 
durance of evil for the sake of good — was the old Ideal- 



302 A DEFENCE OE IDEALISM 

ism's solution of the moral problem. Not a bad solution, 
as far as it went, whenever you could get it to go. 

" The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound." 

Yes; it is all very soul-stirring and uplifting; but it is 
not true in the world where its truth matters; this tragic 
world of space and time. The pleasant fancy of evil as 
negation is no more convincing to a logical mind than it 
is consoling and satisfying to the unreasoning heart. It 
won't work. It won't wash. Go to the victims of war 
and pestilence, and tell them that their torment is only 
the opposite of rapture. Tell a starving population that 
its hunger is merely the absence of satisfaction. Tell the 
sweated workers in the East End that their poverty is 
purely relative to affluence, and but subserves another's 
gain; tell a mother who has just lost her only son that 
bereavement is simply the negation of possession, and see 
how it washes and works. 

Besides, if you are going to take it that way, goodness 
will be null in itself, will be nought in itself, will be 
sound implying silence, and depending on silence. 

There is nothing to be said for pain and evil, thus de- 
vitalized. You have robbed them of their only title to 
existence when you have taken away their positive and 
stimulating character, their antagonism, their brave, 
stoic challenge to the fighter. They are not negative. 
They are tremendous powers. They call forth all the 
stern virtues and all the tendernesses that without them 
could not have been. They make and remake the souls of 
saints and heroes. By even sordid suffering, decently 
borne, the humblest and most insignificant soul may be 
exalted. 

You may know that all this is true. You may know 
that great suffering, great adversity, may be the greatest 
and the best thing that can happen to anybody. You may 
know that your own suffering, your own adversity was 



CONCLUSIONS 303 

the best thing that could have happened to you; and you 
would not, if you could, have spared yourself one single 
pang of it. But you also know that there are vast mil- 
lions of other people for whom suffering and adversity 
are not good at all; for whom none of these truths are 
true. And when all is said and done, it is intolerable 
that these people should suffer. It is intolerable that 
the heroic and tender virtues of a few superior persons 
should be nourished on the sufferings of these millions. 
It is really paying too big a price for individual virtue. 
Nobody has any right to be either compassionate or heroic 
at his or her neighbour's expense. And no theory can 
make it tolerable. 

But it may be more intolerable on one theory than on 
another. And it is most intolerable on the theory that 
makes pain and evil real and absolute and eternal, and 
that allows for no vision of any state of being in which 
they cease to be. The one thing that helps us to endur- 
ance is our sense that pain and evil have not, after all, an 
immortal life. The one thing that makes them intelli- 
gible is the assumption that the only life they have is an 
unreal one. The one thing that would make them bear- 
able would be the unshaken conviction that we have an 
immortal life in which they are overcome; in which we 
receive, or make for ourselves, or give to others whom we 
have injured, compensation. 

(The demand for compensation is a humanistic and 
pragmatic demand, and belongs to another line of argu- 
ment altogether.) 

Of purely metaphysical theories, Monism is the only 
one that supports our sense of the illusion of evil and the 
assumption of its unreality. 

Now, true as it may be, his theory of the mere relativity 
of evil does not carry the monist very far. Still, as long 
as he had no other solution of the problem, he was glad 
enough to be delivered from the horror of real evil, eter- 



304 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

nalized and absolute, even at the cost of parting for ever 
with real good, eternalized and absolute. 

But this awful choice is no longer binding on him. 

The New Bealism has taught him how he may raise up 
the New Idealism on the ruins of the old. 

He is dead right about the relativity of the evil that 
we know. The goods and evils of our earthly life are 
purely relative both to each other and to human condi- 
tions. They are even interchangeable. Goodness may 
be sought for, now in this set of actions, now in that. It 
may be attached to things once accounted evil. Evil may 
be attached to things once accounted good. Goodness it- 
self remains as an eternal and immutable Idea. 

It may or it may not be real. The finite selves do not 
know it as a reality. They only know it as a mysterious 
logical function by which its appearances are recognized 
and known. What it may be in itself or " in the Abso- 
lute " they do not know. 

Badness also remains as an eternal and immutable Idea. 
So that we do not seem to have gained much. But we 
have gained this, that we are not compelled to attribute 
reality to badness. It also is, for us, the mysterious and 
harmless logical function by which its appearances are 
recognized and known. What it may be in itself, or " in 
the Absolute " the finite selves do not know. 

They only know (and this is our immense gain) that 
in themselves, or in the Absolute, Goodness and Badness 
are no longer relative to each other. 

Therefore it will not follow that if one is real in the 
Absolute Self, the other also is real; and that if one is 
the complete and perfect expression of the transcendent 
nature of that Self, the other is its complete and perfect 
expression. It will not follow that, if Goodness is all 
powerful, Badness is all powerful too. It will not follow 
that badness is more than the logical function of knowl- 
edge we already know it to be. 



CONCLUSIONS 305 

But all these consequences follow, rigorously and in- 
evitably, from the realistic theory of universals. The 
New Realism closes the door to any possibility that the 
lovers of Goodness can endure to contemplate. 

The New Idealism leaves the door open to our vision 
of Goodness, Beauty, and Truth, eternal and real, sur- 
passing all goods and beauties and truths we know; in- 
corruptible ; inassailable by evil. 

It may be that some universals are only logical func- 
tions, and that such Ideas will have no more than a poten- 
tial immortality, and that evil, ugliness, and the rest may 
be such Ideas. So that, for a Self that refused to know 
evil and ugliness, or had no longer any use for such 
knowledge, evil and ugliness would literally not be. 

We have seen that the old Idealism, with its doctrine 
of relativity, deprived us of our highest moral ideal, with- 
out any compensation for the loss beyond its academic as- 
surance of the illusory character of evil. We have seen 
that Pragmatism and Humanism provided no metaphy- 
sical ground for the ethical claim they make paramount, 
and that Pragmatism, at any rate, sets up a false and 
unethical criterion of the Good. We have seen that the 
New Realism threatens us with the eternal reality of evil. 
Where so much is uncertain, I do not want to claim a 
superior certainty for this tentative reconstruction that I 
call the New Idealism; but I do think that, more surely 
than any other theory, it opens a way of escape from the 
worst entanglements of the moral problem. 

Meanwhile, it should be clearly understood that my 
monist's distinction between appearance and reality is 
not a distinction that robs one single appearance of its 
own peculiar and relative reality. On the contrary, he 
would not be a good monist if he did not contend that the 
absolute Reality which is Spirit is its own appearances. 
His principle is such that it confers more reality on ap- 



306 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

pearances than it takes away. There is no earthly reason 
why he should not call himself a Kealist, except that the 
title has already been appropriated by his opponents. 
He is only obliged to insist on his distinction in order to 
resist the conclusion they offer him as an alternative. 

What he says is: This multiplicity and change that 
you find in the universe I also find. There is not one 
sensible or intelligible fact in the whole collection to 
which I should refuse the name of reality, provided it be 
understood that not one of these is the Eeality I am look- 
ing for. There is no sort of necessity to go out and look 
for multiplicity and change when you have got them all 
around you. I want to know what, if anything, lies be- 
hind or at the bottom of multiplicity and change. 

You say there is nothing behind or at the bottom of 
them, and that change and multiplicity are sufficient unto 
themselves. And I repeat: Are they? I ask you how 
there can be multiplicity without something that multi- 
plies itself, or change without something that persists 
throughout change. 

It is not that you cannot conceive multiplicity without 
unity, or change without the unchanging. You can very 
well conceive them by a process of logical disintegration. 
It is that, that without the unchanging One, the many 
and the changing cannot be. Take away the persistent 
reality underlying any process of change, or any chain of 
changes; and both process and chain split up into an in- 
finite series, of which you cannot say of any one moment 
that it constitutes a change. Everything is at the in- 
finitely divisible instant when it is. You have, in fact, 
no change at all, but the monotony of an endless series 
of absolute entities. The one underlying reality, then, 
is the only means by which a process of change can be 
carried on; and this, whether you regard a process of 
change, incorrectly, as an unending chain laid out along 



CONCLUSIONS 30? 

one straight line, or, correctly, as an intricate system of 
apparently unending chains. 

Whatever charges can be brought against this form of 
Monism, it cannot be taxed with " thinness," or barren- 
ness, or immobility. Nothing could well be thicker, 
more multitudinous and less monotonous than the life of 
a Self and Spirit that is one. But by every retrench- 
ment of its unity — that is to say, by cutting it off from 
any section of the universe — you at once diminish its 
multiplicity and deprive your section of the possibility of 
change. By removing it altogether, the pluralistic realist 
knocks the bottom out of his pluriverse. 

It is even more obvious that, if this Self or Spirit is 
to be conscious of the change and multiplicity of its own 
manifestations, it must be one. For if it ceased to be 
one and the same self at each moment of change, no mo- 
ment of these momentary selves could be more than one 
momentary monotone. Thus Pluralistic Bealism robs its 
spectacle of any continuous spectator. 

And so, on a balance of considerations, my monist re- 
fuses to relinquish his principle. 

At the same time he must be prepared to relinquish it 
the instant he receives proof positive of its untenability. 
This is as good as a confession that he holds it provision- 
ally, as a likely hypothesis, and not as an absolute cer- 
tainty. 

He is painfully aware that the very existence of his 
Absolute Spirit is problematical; that, outside certain 
extremely rare forms of mystical experience, it is not dis- 
coverable by any experimental method known to man. 
Neither is it provable by any strict deduction from known 
laws of the existent. He cannot uphold it either as a 
conclusion or as a necessary presupposition of all think- 
ing. All he can say is that his hypothesis does not con- 
flict with any proved certainty, and that it seems to him 



308 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

to cover more facts than any other that has been put 
forth hitherto. He might even urge that there are some 
facts the outer fringe of which no other hypothesis so 
much as touches. 

This brings us to the end of our reasoned arguments. 

ii 

Throughout the foregoing metaphysical discussion one 
point must have struck the unmetaphysical reader, as it 
certainly strikes the mere writer: that a good half of the 
problems under consideration arose solely from the 
limitations of language. We can argue with perfect pro- 
priety as to whether things are or are not out of time and 
out of space; and whether one body is or is not outside 
another body ; and whether it is a part or a whole ; and if 
a part, whether of this whole or that. Of things occupy- 
ing space we can argue as to whether they run parallel to 
each other or not, or whether they stand at the circumfer- 
ence or the centre. 

But when it comes to discussing whether things are in- 
side or outside of consciousness; whether consciousness is 
a part or a whole; whether, if it runs, it runs parallel 
with physical processes, or runs altogether in some other 
manner; whether, if it stands, it stands at the circumfer- 
ence or the centre; and whether consciousness stands or 
runs at all, it seems almost obvious that we are being 
made the victims of our own metaphors. 

Idealists and realists seem to have suffered most from 
the confusion that results. When the idealist says that 
the world arises in consciousness, quite palpably he lies. 
But when the realist says that consciousness arises in the 
world he is no nearer to the truth. When he says that the 
world exists outside consciousness, he can only mean that 
it exists outside his body. When he says consciousness is 
a part of his pluriverse and not the whole, what he means, 
or should mean, is that his body is a part of it. Again, 



CONCLUSIONS 309 

when the idealist says that consciousness is the centre of 
his universe, again, palpably, he lies; not because he has 
said too much, but because he has said too little. 

For, when the realist swears by all his realities that 
consciousness stands at the circumference, he is perjured. 
When he reveals his pluriverse as an infinite number of 
entities, mutually repellent, yet co-existing, even inter- 
penetrating, much as the infinite planes of space inter- 
penetrate each other, he may be getting at the truth of 
the matter as nearly as his spectacular methods will allow 
him. But, when he invites you to consider consciousness 
as only one of those entities, standing to all the others in 
the relation of a spectator to a spectacle, then, in spite of 
all the useful distinctions that he makes between things in 
space and time, and things out of space and time, it is 
clear that he is visualising consciousness as somehow oc- 
cupying both. 

If we once grasp the utter irrelevance of all this sym- 
bolic language as applying to consciousness and the rela- 
tion of subject to object, half the difficulties in accepting 
some conscious principle as the ultimate reality will have 
disappeared; and the pluralisms claim to have decentral- 
ized Philosophy falls through. 

After this, the unphilosophic reader will perhaps see no 
reason why the idealist lamb should not lie down by the 
pluralist lion. But the reason is clear enough. The 
lamb does not do the smallest damage to the lion. He 
does not interfere with any one of his adventures. It is 
the lion that will not consent to live and let live. The 
prestige of Spirit is seriously endangered by the restric- 
tions Realism has laid on it. But Beality is not one 
whit the worse because Idealism chooses to regard Spirit 
as its source. It is no more a dance of bloodless cate- 
gories than it was before. Existence remains as full- 
blooded and gorgeously coloured, as variegated and multi- 
tudinous, as everlastingly exciting, mysterious and sur- 



310 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

prising whether you call it the manifestation of Spirit 
or a collection of ultimate realities. 

The only question that concerns us is: Which theory 
is the more likely to be true ? 

We found that on a balance of the reasoned evidence 
we had some grounds for supposing Spiritualistic Monism 
more likely to be true than Pluralistic Realism, and no 
valid grounds for supposing it to be false. 

But, if the reasoned evidence had failed us so far as to 
leave the balance even, we should not then have despaired. 
For we found a mass of evidence over and above ; which, 
whether we regard it as springing from a higher and 
purer, or from a lower and more troubled source than 
reason, is not altogether to be gainsaid. We found that 
one of our oldest, deepest, and most enduring possessions 
is the sense of the Unseen. We saw it grow from a primi- 
tive sense, a blind and savage instinct, to a transcendent 
spiritual passion. We distinguished between the higher 
and the lower forms of Mysticism. We found that, when 
criticism had done its worst, it was possible to separate 
the purer from the baser elements of the same emotion; 
and that after the most implacable analysis there re- 
mained something indestructible, irreducible, indefinable, 
bearing its own peculiar certainty. 

At the same time we acknowledged that the certainty 
of spiritual instinct is one thing, and the certainty of 
reason is another ; and that the highest degree of certainty 
can only be reached when at all points the two corroborate 
and support each other. Such a degree of certainty we 
are very far from having reached, though at some points 
we may have found this corroboration and support. 



CONCLUSIONS 311 

in 

We have now to find the hearing of our conclusions, 
such as they are, on the question of Personal Immortality. 

Before we can do this, however, we shall have to con- 
sider certain evidence from other sources, sources that 
we have left, so far, unexplored. 

First of all, there is the huge mass of that so-called 
" evidence," which the Society for Psychical Research 
makes it its business to investigate and sift; the evidence 
drawn from the communications of mediums, from auto- 
matic writing, from " cross-correspondence " ; the alleged 
apparitions of the departed, " materializations " and ve- 
ridical dreams. 

I do not propose to investigate and sift this evidence 
all over again. People who are interested in (i Spiritual- 
ism," critically or otherwise, should study the literature 
of the subject for themselves. When they have read and 
digested the Journals and Proceedings of the Society up 
to date, and the records of foreign organizations devoted 
to the same adventure, together with Mr. P. W. Myers 
on Human Personality and Sir Oliver Lodge's Raymond, 
they had hetter read Mr. Prank Podmore's Studies in 
Psychical Research also. I shall, therefore, he very brief. 

Briefly, then, we shall do well to distinguish between 
what are, broadly speaking, two kinds of evidence: In- 
direct communications, made through mediums, with 
their accompanying apparitions or materializations, and: 
Direct communications, made spontaneously and without 
any apparent machinery of suggestion, such as " ve- 
ridical " dreams and apparitions seen without the help of 
mediums. Under both these heads there is an enormous 
body of perfectly well-authenticated testimony borne by 
irreproachable persons. Some of it, but only a very little, 
has even been brought forward by sceptical and indiffer- 
ent persons, persons without any interest in the result 
one way or other. 



312 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

Briefly, again, I think there cannot be a doubt in the 
mind of any unprejudiced person that, both through the 
agency of mediums and otherwise, things happen; things 
that are not explainable by any trickery; things interest- 
ing enough, and even uncanny enough to charm the most 
fastidious lover of the occult. (Unfortunately, lovers of 
the occult are very seldom hampered in their researches 
by over fastidiousness.) 

The question is: What happens? 

Take the regular Spiritualistic phenomena first. Mrs. 
Piper, say, seems to be giving messages from the spirits 
of Mr. Myers or Dr. Verrall. Their authenticity seems 
to be sufficiently attested by allusions to intricate and 
subtle points of scholarship said to be known only to Dr. 
Verrall and Mr. Myers. The automatic writer writes 
words that she herself would never have dreamed of, as if 
under an irresistible and supernatural compulsion. 
What she has written tallies with something said to be 
known only to the departed. Hands are certainly seen 
to be waving where human hands are not. Bunches of 
flowers, and even still more solid objects materialize ap- 
parently from nowhere out of nothing. 

It cannot all be fraud, all the time, though some of it 
may be sometimes. Exposure in ninety-nine cases af- 
fords no absolutely valid grounds for denying that the 
hundredth case may be genuine. 

What, then, is going on ? 

So far as psychical research has been carried yet, I 
cannot see that, even under the most carefully prepared 
test conditions, there is an atom of evidence to show that 
what is going on is an actual communication, or effort at 
communication, of the discarnate with the incarnate. 

It may be so. But until we have eliminated every pos- 
sible source of suggestion from the living we have no 
right to assume an even remote suggestion from " the 
other side." And to ensure this test condition we should 



CONCLUSIONS 313 

have to exterminate the living. The test will not be water- 
tight until the communicant is alone with the communica- 
tor ; and then there will only be his word for it. 

On this side, whatever Spiritualism may be, telepathy 
is a fact ; and whatever the precise limits and possibilities 
of telepathy may be, we have not yet discovered them. 

Can we be sure that the things said to be known only to 
the discarnate are not among the subconscious memories 
of the communicant or of some person present at the 
seance ? Or that they are not known by any living mind 
on earth? Nothing in the annals of Psychical Kesearch 
is more astonishing than the series of cross-correspond- 
ences in the case of Mrs. Holland and Mrs. Verrall. Mrs. 
Holland in India received by automatic writing one half 
of a supposed communication ; the other half was received 
by Mrs. Verall in England, neither making sense by itself. 
The two writers were unacquainted, and each was unaware 
of what the other was doing. The perfect dove-tailing of 
the fragments could not be accounted for on any theory of 
coincidences. The two writings clearly dealt with the 
same context; for quotations from certain known poems, 
broken off or garbled in one fragment, were completed or 
emended by the other. 

Here the test conditions were all that could be desired. 
It was a manifest case of tapping a " wireless." Yet who 
could say that the probability of wireless from the living 
was ruled out? The state of desire and expectancy, in 
which all these efforts to communicate are made, renders 
the minds of the investigators peculiarly open to sugges- 
tion. And — an extremely important point — the more 
transparently honest the mind, the more passive it will be, 
therefore the more open. 

And if the messages are suspect, what shall we say of 
the manifestations ? In these cases how can we possibly 
rule out suggestion ? Certain experiments have been made 
by Janet and his son on their patients at the Salpetriere, 



314 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

which show that both positive and negative hallucinations 
can be produced by suggestion. The patient, that is to 
say, can be made, not only to see things that are not there 
and to behave as if they were there, but not to see things 
that are there and to behave as if they were not there ; both 
hallucinations remaining intact until the experimenter 
releases the enchanted one from her enchantment. And 
not only eminent alienists, but obscure amateurs have done 
as much. Why then should not the magic of the medium 
be equally effective ? Why should not an expert suggestor 
create both positive and negative hallucinations at will? 
Is it a question of pocketing the u sendings " and taking 
them home with you, why should he not introduce into 
the blankly innocent scene all the paraphernalia of mate- 
rialization he requires, by simply inhibiting the perception 
of them, until the moment comes for handing round the 
evidential trophies ? This would account for the indu- 
bitably solid objects, the plaster-casts of " spirit-hands," 
the flowers, the little girls, and the teaspoons which have 
figured at certain twentieth-century seances. 

However this may be, if psychical researchers are not 
increasing their knowledge of " the other side," they are 
preparing excellent material for psychologists on this side. 

The other sort of evidence, the direct and spontaneous 
sort, is, I think, in rather better case. It would be stupid 
to deny that there have been well-authenticated appari- 
tions, and so-called veridical dreams, which appeal to our 
belief because of their directness and spontaneity; by the 
fact that they have come to people who were not looking 
for them, in many cases to people who would have gone out 
of their way to avoid them if they had known that they 
were coming. The sudden unexpectedness of these en- 
counters through the veridical dream and the valedictory 
apparition is in their favour. 

But, here again, the possibility of telepathy between 



CONCLUSIONS 315 

the living is by no means ruled out. So far, if I am not 
mistaken, most of the verified or verifiable instances of 
apparitions have occurred, not after death but before it, 
or at the actual moment of passing, and cannot be taken 
as evidence of survival. The vision of the dead body may 
be explained by suggestion from the living attendants of 
the dead. So may the instance of the dream that comes 
true. And there is always coincidence. 

There remain certain (also well-authenticated) cases of 
the continuous apparition, the ghost that haunts. It seems 
hardly likely that they are all the products of a disordered 
brain or a habit of mendacity. But I have never come 
across any more satisfactory explanation of them. We 
may invent hypotheses to account for them: for instance, 
that the impact of all visible and audible events is con- 
tinued in an infinite series of finer and finer vibrations, 
the swing, as it were, of infinitely divisible etheric par- 
ticles ; so that, long after the date of the original event, its 
ghostly simulacra are seen or heard by senses pitched to 
their rates of vibration. But even if some unforeseen dis- 
covery in physics were to give encouragement to this 
theory, it would involve a corresponding theory of an in- 
finite series of finer and finer senses, pitched to the finer 
and finer vibrations ; and even if this received encourage- 
ment from psychology, we should still be no nearer know- 
ing why some of these events should be perceived and not 
others. 

And we should be as far as ever from any evidence of 
survival. 

There is yet another very ancient and widespread be- 
lief, on which many people still found their hope of per- 
sonal immortality: the belief in Keincarnation. 

If the belief itself were well founded it would be as good 
a foundation as we could wish to have. If we have lived 



316 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

many times before, there is, to say the least of it, an ante- 
cedent probability that we shall live again. There would 
even be no reason why we should ever stop living. 

Now there are three theories of Keincarnation, and two 
of them are mutually exclusive. One is primitive and sav- 
age; one ancient and pseudo-metaphysical; one modern, 
and, if not scientific, fairly well founded on scientific 
grounds. 

According to the primitive and savage belief, we are all 
reincarnations of the dead. Ghosts are germs and germs 
are ghosts. As the flower and the corn return to earth, we 
return. The ghosts of the newly dead hang about, in 
woods and at cross-roads, for choice, waiting for women 
to pass by that they may enter their bodies and be born 
again. The places where they hang about are haunted 
places. 

According to the second and most fascinating form of 
the belief (which involves the doctrine of Karma), we are 
born again and again as full-blown human individuals, 
breaking through the knitted chain of the generations at 
points that may be divided by many ages. 

According to the third, we have been incarnate again 
and again in the bodies of our parents and our ancestors, 
in such sort that the chain of generation is never broken. 
This, as we have seen, is the doctrine of Pan-Psychism. 

Observe that both the primitive and the modern theory 
are the most satisfactory and courageous in tackling the 
crux of reincarnation — its modus operandi. The theory 
of Karma leaves this essential part of the problem alto- 
gether too vague. And I am bound to confess that it is the 
savage who scores in simplicity and precision. 

But it is the theory involving Karma that people mean 
when they talk about reincarnation. It exerts an irre- 
sistible fascination for certain temperaments that would be 
repelled by the Pan-Psychism of Samuel Butler or of 
anybody else. 



CONCLUSIONS 317 

The belief has been for ages the actual, living belief of 
millions in India, China and Japan. In spite of its in- 
herent difficulties it is still more or less sincerely held by 
many perfectly sane people in Europe and America at the 
present day. You used to meet them at the Ritz or Rum- 
pelmeyer's (it was in the days before the War), when they 
would tell you as a matter of course that they remembered 
being a dancer at the court of Amen Hotep III., or the 
queen-consort of Assurbanipal, or a concubine of Senna- 
cherib, or a priestess in the temple of Krishna, or a great 
hetaira of the age of Pericles. (The odd thing is that the 
Reincarnated have always been something royal or hieratic 
or improper; something sufficiently afar from the sphere 
of their sorrow, Eastern or Egyptian preferred ; something, 
whatever it may be, that they are not now. ) And they ex- 
pect you to believe them. 

They are not content to have taken part in the thousand 
or the million incarnations of their own ancestors, in a 
thousand or a million experiences; they are not content 
with their thousandth or their millionth share in the ad- 
ventures of the dancer at the court of Amen Hotep III. ; 
they want all the adventure to themselves. It is the full- 
blown dancing individual they claim to have been. And 
the plain facts of biology are all against it. You cannot 
thus break through the unbroken chain of the generations. 
The difficulty for the devotees of this form of reincarna- 
tion is, not that there is no proof that they have never lived 
before, but that there is too much proof that they have 
never stopped living. They have never escaped from the 
chain until the day when they were born as the individual 
they are now. 

Pan-Psychism is a theory, not of Reincarnation, but of 
continuous Incarnation. And unless there are grounds — 
and I have tried to show that there are grounds — for sup- 
posing that the Self is something over and above its own 
experience, its own memories, and its own organism, the 



318 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

mere fact that we have never stopped living so far is no 
guarantee that we shall go on living after the final dissolu- 
tion of that organism. But if we have appropriated it 
rather than inherited it, our previous existence becomes, I 
think, a very considerable guarantee. 

~Now it may be objected that this self over and above is a 
pure blank. Yet it seems to be all that is left to us. And 
if the pure self is as pure as that, what good is it to any- 
body ? If there is nothing in it, how is it going to carry 
on and to carry us on ? 

I own that it doesn't look as if the self-over-and-above 
could give much support to the hope of immortality, or that 
in its nakedness it is likely to appeal to the plain man. 
The pure self is not looked upon with favour even by 
idealists. Kant, who as good as discovered it, fought shy 
of it. Realists are fond of reminding you that you cannot 
prove existence, you can only perceive it. Is there, 
then, any reasonable sense in which it can be said to exist ? 
If it isn't perceived, and if it isn't memory, if it isn't con- 
sciousness, what is it ? My friend, Dr. McTaggart, says it 
is nothing. And its blankness must seem to many peo- 
ple every bit as terrifying as the blankness of death. 

Yet it is in this pure self that I am asking you to put 
your trust. 

Eor all these objections rest on the monstrous assumption 
that what you cannot perceive does not exist and is not real. 
And this is to claim greater authority for finite and human 
perception than it can possibly possess. Eemember, it is 
only the purity of the self that is so universally objected to. 
And the self is not more pure, more utterly beyond touch 
and sight than space and time are. It is not more empty 
to perception than matter is in the last analysis. And we 
saw what dangers and dilemmas we avoided by putting self- 
hood where the plain man (unaware of its purity) puts it 
— first. 

Personally, I am not dismayed by this blankness of the 



CONCLUSIONS 319 

self behind me. Rather, because of it, I can face the blank- 
ness before me without flinching. I can conceive all my 
memory, that is to say, all the experience I had acquired in 
this life, everything that makes me recognizable and dear 
to myself and to other people ; I cannot only conceive, but 
think of it as going from me with my death and of myself 
as yet continuing. 

I would rather keep that experience intact — I have al- 
ready lost much by simple, casual forgetting, and if I have 
lived long enough I may have lost all that is worth keeping 
of it — I had rather keep that memory and carry it over 
with me, for the living interest of the thing; but if I am 
driven to conclude that I must lose it, I do not therefore 
think of myself as lost. It may be that, here again, a more 
perfect forgetting is, as it was before, the condition of a 
more perfect consciousness. I know that I could, and 
probably shall, embrace a wholly new experience with the 
same eager interest with which I have embraced the old. 
For, through forgetfulness of my past lives, my present 
life began to all intents and purposes as a blank, an expe- 
rience that I knew nothing of, and that knew nothing of 
me. 

And supposing that no vehicle of individuality, such as 
my body was, awaits me at the instant of death. Suppos- 
ing that no refined simulacrum of my body exists, either as 
an inner or outer vehicle, or as an interpenetrating and 
energizing substance, inscrutably present with my physical 
body and enduring after my death. (Many quite sane peo- 
ple believe in such a vehicle, on evidence I know nothing 
about except that it satisfies them.) Supposing that no 
such vehicle is at my disposal, and that I have to wait 
untold ages before I can find one, or the germ of one, in 
order to appear and to be conscious again; those untold 
ages will not trouble me. They will no doubt exist as the 
time-schemes of other consciousnesses, other thoughts, and 
other emotions. Other selves, living at another pace and 



320 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

with another intensity, will beat out the measure and will 
keep the record of those times, just as some superhuman 
and superorganic consciousness must have kept the record 
and beaten out the measure of prehuman and preorganic 
times. They do not concern me. In the first instant that 
I am conscious again my world arises, as if there had been 
no age-long break, no break at all ; not so much as an infin- 
itesimally small interval, and I shall conceive my world 
as without beginning and without end. 

The actual break is the worst that can happen to me, 
and, whether it be long or short, I shall know nothing of it. 

It may be still objected that in cutting the self adrift 
from memory I am burning the only ship that will bring 
me safe to shore. But this implies that the underwriters 
have ensured that ship, and will continue to ensure her, 
which is very far from being the case. I am leaving an 
unseaworthy vessel whose foundering, if she does founder, 
will sink me with her to the bottom. I might possibly be 
afraid to sink with the ship ; to drown, battened down with 
the rats in the hold, but for the probability that neither I 
nor the rats would know anything about it. I am not in 
the least afraid to throw myself into the open sea. 

But this theory of Pan-Psychism provides another and a 
stronger argument for human immortality. It supposes 
that all Life and the evolution of every living organism 
depends on the desire and the design of an indestructible 
psyche; and that, under favourable conditions, when the 
desire and the design have been strong enough and suit- 
able, they have been fulfilled. And as far as the living 
organism goes, design has followed, slavishly, desire. So 
that, if the human psyche has a strong desire for immor- 
tality, and if its design is in accordance with that desire, 
immortality, in spite of the fact that it is a large order, 
should follow. 

There are few arguments for Personal Immortality that 



CONCLUSIONS 321 

have not some danger. And this argument from human 
instinct and desire is imperilled by the objection that this 
particular instinct and desire is by no means universal, and 
that no psychic design, so far as we know, in any way de- 
pends on it. It may be distinctly lacking in highly civi- 
lized societies. The less instinctive and the more intel- 
lectual man becomes, the more he is apt to repudiate both 
the belief in immortality and the desire and the hope of it. 

The belief apparently rests on instinct. But the desire 
and the hope do not seem to be as instinctive, or at any rate 
as primitive as the belief. Where the belief is practically 
universal, as among savages, the life after death and all 
that belongs to it are dreaded rather than desired. The 
savage may desire the dead man's strength, his manaj but 
the discarnate ghost itself is a thing of terror. 

And the belief is more a belief in survival than in im- 
mortality. For the primitive mind is a child's mind. It 
cannot grasp the idea of any long period of definite time, 
much less the idea of immortality. 

The hope and the desire are virile instincts. With one 
apparent exception, they seem to have dominated the youth 
of the race and its maturity ; to belong to those stages of its 
development that lie between primitive savagery and ex- 
treme civilization ; and to be intimately associated with the 
rise and decline of personal religion. 

The one exception, which is the stock argument against 
the belief in personal immortality, is of course Buddhism. 
Buddhism, it is said, the ancient and permanent religion 
of millions of the human race, is a religion founded on the 
negation of immortality. And wherever it exists it is the 
religion, not of a handful of metaphysicians but of the 
priesthood and the common people. 

And as, with the progress of science and speculative 
thought, the belief tends to disappear, so with the progress 
of civilization the desire itself weakens. It is not only that 
the intellectuals doubt or disbelieve for intellectual reasons, 



322 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

and spread their doubt or disbelief through all the circles 
that they influence. Other and simpler people are indif- 
ferent; and the root of their indifference is moral and 
physical rather than intellectual. The belief in immor- 
tality is no longer popular ; at any rate, it has no longer the 
vogue it once had. 

And we have reason to be cautious in approaching it, 
when we find the distinguished historian of the origin of 
this belief regarding it with a half -amused and half dis- 
dainful scepticism. 

It must be confessed that the result of Sir James 
Frazer's researches are not such as to make sensitive people 
in love with the belief in human immortality. They are 
not such as to make intelligent people conclude that there 
is anything in humanity that deserves to endure even for 
a day. It is quite possible to bring forward an array of 
facts to show that the whole history of this pitiful race is 
one long record of cowardice and uncleanness, cruelty and 
imbecility. 

Listen to these two voices that debate the destiny of 
man: 

" Surely, they say, such a glorious creature was not born for 
mortality, to be snuffed out like a candle, to fade like a flower, 
to pass away like a breath. Is all that penetrating intellect, 
that creative fancy, that vaulting ambition, those noble pas- 
sions, those far-reaching hopes, to come to nothing, to shrink up 
into a pinch of dust? It is not so; it cannot be. . . ." 

" Shall a creature so frail and puny claim to live for ever, to 
outlast not only the present starry system, but every other that 
when earth and stars have crumbled into dust, shall be built 
upon their ruins in the long, long hereafter? It is not so, it 
cannot be. . . ." 

" Those who take this view of the transitoriness of man com- 
pared with the vastness and permanence of the universe find lit- 
tle in the beliefs of savages to alter their opinion. They see in 
the savage conception of the soul and its destiny nothing but a 
product of childish ignorance, the hallucinations of hysteria, 
the ravings of insanity, or the concoctions of deliberate fraud 
and imposture." 59 



CONCLUSIONS 323 

You see the historian trying to hold the balance scrupu- 
lously even; but there is little doubt as to which of those 
two voices is the more insistent. He also reminds us that 
Buddhism is a conspicuous and extensive and damaging 
fact. 

And when we remember that our positive metaphysical 
arguments rest on the slender foothold of debatable hy- 
pothesis, and that we were obliged to fall back on the bio- 
logical and psychological arguments from desire and de- 
sign, and that these arguments apparently cannot stand the 
light of an impartial historical survey; when we are re- 
minded, further, that William James prefaced his immor- 
tal essay on Immortality with the emphatic statement that 
he personally had no desire for it whatever, it looks as if 
the prospects for human immortality were black ; as if we 
should have, after all, to content ourselves with the negative 
encouragement we are at least sure of — the impossibility 
of proving that it cannot be. 

Yet we were in worse case a little while back, when we 
tried to discover whether Mysticism had anything in it 
that escaped the violence of its detractors. We found then 
that, for all its dubious or disgraceful history, and for all 
its elements of grossness and absurdity, there was some- 
thing intangible and invulnerable that escaped. We found 
that you might as well judge poetry by the practice of the 
worst poetasters as judge Mysticism by the practice of its 
worst exponents or by the lapses of its best. 

And so I think that, if we look closer, we shall find for 
one thing that, in spite of its savage history, there is 
nothing either absurd or ignoble in the belief in immor- 
tality itself. 

To begin with, the belief has been evolved. It has not 
remained in its primitive savagery. And even in its prim- 
itiveness it was not, after all, such a very imbecile belief. 
It arose, in the first place, from a most intelligent and 
reasonable desire for fertility. The ghost, imagined as 



324 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

surviving, was, originally, the source of mana, the mys- 
terious power of life. 60 The savage tribesman had no 
personal aspirations. He did not think of himself as 
a person. Therefore he took short views, and it did not 
occur to him that he might eventually become a spirit and 
the source of power. He only aspired to get power, to get 
life, from season to season, to be fruitful and to bring 
fruitfulness to his trees and grain and to his flocks and 
herds. He buried the seed, and he saw that it came up 
again as a green blade. He buried his father, and he 
looked for him to come up again in children born to the tribe. 

There must have been an immense step between this 
primitive idea of subjective immortality and the idea of 
the ghost's life as independent and continuous. First 
of all, the ghost is a buried, underground thing; it is later 
that he moves about on the face of the earth and becomes 
the dreadful supernatural thing, the haunter, the watcher 
by the cross-roads and the sacred tree 61 ; much later, then, 
he becomes the departed who has journeyed to the Islands 
of the Blessed and will not return. 

Apparently it is not until this stage is reached that it 
occurs to primitive man that he may very well live again 
like his fathers, and that where they have gone he may 
go. It is later still that he conceives the idea of the spirit- 
ual dying and new birth ; and with it the passion for God 
and the desire of immortality for its own sake. 

Yet not altogether for its own sake. He wants to be 
wherever his gods are. When he has once for all placed 
his god in heaven rather than under the earth, it is to 
heaven that he wants to go. 

The desire of immortality is one thing, then, and the 
primitive belief in a survival on earth is another. And 
the desire of immortality comes last, and comes with man's 
consciousness of himself as an immaterial being. Imma- 
terial, therefore immortal. He desires to be what he is not 
yet ; but he does not desire it until he is ready for it, until 



CONCLUSIONS 325 

he knows it to be possible. And in all this his religion is 
not the driving and compelling power ; it follows the lead 
of the developing and dominant desire. It once centred 
round his natural and tribal life, then around his social 
life. It now centres round his individual and spiritual 
life ; that is all. The individual is adapting himself to the 
wider reality that his prophetic need discerns. 

Presently he seeks metaphysical grounds for his belief 
and ethical justification for his desire. 

Last of all, in the decadence of over-civilized races, 
when they are about to be conquered by the younger and 
the stronger race, the belief and the hope and the desire of 
immortality weaken and die. 

This is where the passionate concentration on origins 
would seem to be misleading. It diverts attention from 
the fact that there are such things as ends. The study of 
what has been is important ; it is interesting ; but it is in- 
teresting and it is important chiefly as throwing light on 
what is and what will be, which are even more important 
and more interesting than it. 

So that when we see the thing through, its history does 
not show up this belief as ignoble, infantile, and absurd. 
It shows the desire for immortality strengthening with 
man's youth and his maturity, and declining and decaying 
only with his weakness and decay. 

It has been said that wherever the belief has existed it 
has proved harmful, therefore contrary to the design of the 
psyche and its organism, therefore destined to disappear. 

This objection also ignores what has happened and is 
happening. It is true that there has always been a dis- 
astrous period of transition, when man has not yet adjusted 
the claims of his natural and spiritual life; when he has 
been so unaware of the metaphysical grounds of his immor- 
tality that he has tried to bargain with his God for it, to 
buy his soul's life with the sacrifice of his body. The 
cruelties and violences of asceticism proved that he was by 



326 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

no means sure that his passion for God and immortality 
was requited. This period may stand for the crisis of 
spiritual adolescence with its uncertainty and disturbance 
and self-torture. The passion for God and immortality 
are no more discredited by it than human passion is by 
the physical crisis of its coming. 

It is also true that the nineteenth century was a vigorous 
and virile century; yet disbelief in immortality was then 
almost de rigueur among people with any pretensions to 
scientific training. But this was partly because the first 
triumphs of physical science had turned the heads of its 
professors. It may be observed that Professor Huxley did 
not discover his " mechanical equivalent of consciousness " ; 
he lived, in fact, to recant so far as to confess that Nature 
could not possibly have evolved the laws of Ethics which 
exist in violent opposition to Nature's laws. And the 
twentieth century is not unanimously backing the illusory 
by-product theory of consciousness. 

In any century the desire of immortality, or at any rate, 
of life after death, is a sign of youth and vitality and vigour 
in those who feel it keenly. The strong man wants to go 
on living, to have more and more outlet for his energies, 
to do more, to feel more, to know more. He wants it in- 
stinctively; for the stronger and healthier he is the less 
he is likely to think about it at all. When he is old and 
weak and worn out, or young and weak, and bored to prema- 
ture extinction with living, he does think about it. He 
wants, not instinctively, but consciously, to lie down and 
go to sleep, to stop the intolerable nuisance of living. 

On the whole, then, the argument from desire and de- 
sign holds good. It is the weak and inefficient, the unwise 
in the affairs of life, the bunglers and the failures, the 
bankrupts and the unhappy lovers who most want to leave 
off living. Think of the number of suicides that occur 
every year through bankruptcy and unhappy love alone. 



CONCLUSIONS 327 

Count in the suicides through poverty ; and remember that 
these are all people whose vitality has been lowered by 
worry or frustrated passion and starvation, and that their 
aim is to end life, and not to obtain it more abundantly. 

Count in the philosophers who profess a noble indiffer- 
ence to the issue, and still a suspicion of lowered vitality 
arises. 

And if suicide is to be reprobated on the grounds that it 
is dishonourable and selfish, the desire to go on living 
cannot very well be reprobated on the same grounds. Its 
motive may be, and often is, the passion for metaphysical 
truth and for a righteousness not obtainable on earth. It 
may be, and often is, in the highest degree aesthetic. 

For the universe as it stands is ethically and aesthetically 
incomplete. It has a certain significance for our pe- 
culiarly human consciousness, which never for one mo- 
ment, seize it where we may, tails off into insignificance. 
It appeals to us in an incalculable number of intensely 
exciting sentences, which it hurls at our heads and leaves 
provokingly unfinished. It has made us spectators of its 
stupendous drama ; what is more, it has honoured us with 
free passes as critics of the performance ; worse still, it in- 
volves us personally in important and dramatic situations, 
which it leaves undeveloped. It involves itself in per- 
petual engagements to us which hitherto it has not ful- 
filled. It creates desires which certainly cannot be satis- 
fied in one life-time, or in the conditions of the only life we 
know. There is some evidence that it has created, or is 
creating, powers in us whose exercise demands another and 
more extensive sphere. And we find it preposterous that a 
universe which has unbent so far as to consider us in this 
programme should leave us ultimately in the lurch. 

And when we look back on the long course of our pre- 
human history, we judge that, if Life does turn traitor at 
the last, it will be behaving contrary to all precedent. 
There should be no arraignment of Nature so sweeping as 



328 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

to obscure the fact that there has been precedent. Organic 
forms, locked in the infernal struggle for existence, have, 
after all, evolved; and the struggle has been an important 
factor in their evolution. Eliminate catastrophe: the 
wholesale fortuitous destruction of living forms by storm 
and flood and sudden changes in environment, and the en- 
counter with inorganic conditions disastrous to any life; 
eliminate waste: the careless handling of the vehicle of 
life, the fate of the germs that have never had a chance to 
develop ; eliminate the struggle of the already evolved : the 
slaughter accomplished by one species on another and by 
individuals within the species ; assume, with Pan-Psychism, 
that fitness is the expression of the individual's desire to 
survive, and it will be seen that Nature has not behaved 
unfairly to her organisms after all. She has destroyed 
countless forms of the unfit, in whom we may presuppose 
no very keen desire to survive ; she has preserved at their 
original low level millions of humble forms whose desire 
was chiefly that they might stay there; but she has re- 
warded greatly the great desires, the great ambitions, the 
great accomplishments. She has even more rewarded the 
small desires, the small ambitions that were faithful and 
persistent. 

Nature abhors incompetence. But apparently no pa- 
tient and efficient psyche ever desired the physical vehicle 
or tool that it did not obtain. No appropriate need was 
left long unsatisfied, no organ left to wither by disuse 
as long as its function was appropriate and the fulfilment 
of that function desired. 

If we may assume with Pan-Psychism that need and de- 
sire were prophetic; that is to say, always a little in ad- 
vance of the actual conditions, without which advance evo- 
lution would seem to have been impossible, the analogy is 
complete, and we are justified in asking, Why pursue this 
policy of indulgence to all the ambitious animal forms and 
stop short at man ? May he not go on doing what he did 



CONCLUSIONS 329 

in his mother's womb, what he has been doing ever since his 
psyche and the first speck of protoplasm came together ? 
Why this sudden, arbitrary prohibition now, just when he 
is beginning to be interested in the universe around him, as 
well as in his own performance ? 

Now, if there is anything in Pan-Psychism, this argu- 
ment will stand whether we are pluralists or monists. But 
I believe it will have most support from the theory which 
presupposes that 

" There is one ruler, the Self within all things, who makes the 
one form manifold . . . 

" There is one eternal Thinker, thinking non-eternal thoughts, 
who, though one, fulfils the desires of many. . . ." {Katha- 
Upanishad, ii. 5.) 

Buddhism alone, the Great Exception, stands, we are 
told, in the way of the argument from desire. 

But is Buddhism really so obstructive as it is said to be ? 
Isn't it just possible that the Great Exception may prove 
the rule ? Consider how it came by its doctrine of Nirvana. 
(Granting, for the moment, that by Nirvana it means what 
we mean by Extinction. ) As far as it is a theory and not 
a religion, Buddhism presupposes the metaphysical doctrine 
of the Absolute laid down in the Upanishads. So far as it 
is a religion, it is founded on compassion and pity and the 
revolt against the cruelty of caste. The revolt against caste 
itself presupposes some influence from the doctrine of 
Brahma, the Great Self, in whom all men and all things are 
one. 

On its metaphysical side the Nirvana of the Buddhist is 
the state of union with the Absolute ; or, if you like, the 
utter extinction of the individual as such. On its religious 
side it is the ceasing from the sorrow of divided life. De- 
sire is the cause of Life, which is the cause of sorrow ; there- 
fore Nirvana, the state of blessedness, is attained by simply 



330 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

ceasing to desire. Metaphysically, Nirvana is the state of 
pure, absolute, unconditioned Being. It is the very last 
and subtlest refinement of the One of the Vedas, the Great 
Self of the Upanishads; defined by contradictions and 
negations. Nirvana is defined only by negations. The 
mystic of the Upanishads says : " Who is able to know 
that Self who rejoices and rejoices not ? " The Buddhist 
of the Suttas goes one better. Who is able to know that he 
does not know % If the sixth stage of mental deliverance is 
to think that " nothing at all exists," the seventh stage is 
the passing " quite beyond all idea of nothingness " to " a 
state to which neither ideas nor the absence of ideas is 
specially present " ; and that is topped by the eighth stage, 
in which nothing is affirmed and nothing is denied, but 
" both sensations and ideas have ceased to be." (Maha- 
parinibbdna Sutta, iii.) 

This is the mental discipline by which thought reaches 
up to Nirvana, the state which transcends thought. It is 
" ecstasy of contemplation." 

You may say that Buddhism ends where Hegelianism 
begins, with the statement that Being and non-Being are 
the same; that it reverses the movement of the Triple 
Dialectic ; that, instead of resolving the contradiction in the 
synthetic affirmation of Becoming, it proceeds by way of 
the negation of Becoming, the denial of the world of ap- 
pearances, to its definition of Being. 

Buddhism is the denial of all the metaphysical systems 
that were before it. You might think a metaphysical sys- 
tem did not matter. But it matters horribly. A meta- 
physical system is a deadly thing. It may bind a man to 
the wheel of life by giving him wrong ideas about reality. 

In the Sutta of All the Asavas or Book of the Deadly 
Things you will read of the six delusions of metaphysical 
thought : 

" I have a self : 



CONCLUSIONS 331 

" I have not a self : 

" By myself I am conscious of myself : 

" By myself I am conscious of my not-self : 

" This soul of mine can be perceived ; it has experienced the 
result of good and evil actions committed here and there: 

" This soul of mine is permanent, lasting, eternal, unchange- 
able ; it will endure for ever and ever." 62 

The delusion consists not in having these ideas, but in 
ascribing truth and reality to them. 

You may say that Buddhism lands you in utter ne- 
science, since it denies every conceivable statement that can 
be made about reality. 

But observe the nature of the denial in each case. It is 
the negation of a negation. In the supreme interests of 
the Absolute, Buddhism denies the reality of the appear- 
ing world ; it strips Being bare of each unreal quality one 
by one, till not one shred of illusion is left clinging to it. 
Beyond this it makes no affirmation or denial. As the 
qualities are expressly stated to be unreal, the stripping 
process is anything but negation. It is the affirmation of 
Keality carried to passion and excess. 

So that the unreal individual life must therefore be held 
to be utterly extinguished in Nirvana. But it is hardly 
even an open question whether Nirvana is or is not a state 
of Being ; of pure and perfect bliss, beyond speech, beyond 
sense, beyond thought, beyond dream and desire or any 
form of consciousness we know. To define it, as the Bud- 
dhist defines it, by a series of negations, is simply a way of 
saying, with the utmost metaphysical hyperbole, that where 
there is Nothing there is All. 

But whatever esoteric Buddhism might have said or 
meant, it was not entirely with that seemingly unreal 
glamour that it charmed the heart of Asia. For everything 
that was lacking in Nirvana it made up by its very robust 
and substantial doctrine of Beincarnation. To disciples 



332 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

who had no fancy for extinction, it offered an endless and 
exciting round of rebirths. Nobody forced Nirvana on 
you if you didn't want it. You could postpone your flight 
to the Absolute practically to all eternity by a judicious 
system of backsliding. You had only to neglect some ob- 
vious duty in each life as you returned to it to ensure 
another return. 

In fact, you had not even to do that. You had only to 
desire to live again, and you lived. Your Karma might 
indeed force you back again against your will; but 
then you are responsible for your Karma. The whole 
thing is in your own hands. Desire binds you to the wheel 
of Life. Desire shapes your destiny for you within the 
wheel. Your desire, not God's ; not anybody else's. It is 
Pan-Psychism all over again. 

You grow your own organism because you want to. 

This amounts to Personal Immortality — as much im- 
mortality as you want, and for as long as you want it. 

So that Buddhism should really not be used by sceptics 
to justify their scepticism. One imagines that Buddhists 
who declare for Nirvana in preference to reincarnation are 
the decadents, and the professors of philosophy, and the 
mystics — who know what they know. 

But there is a third objection that may be made. 

In the beginning we found the perfection of individuality 
in perfect adaptation to reality. And it may be said that 
the argument from desire overlooks the compulsion that is 
laid on the individual to conform. Things are not in his 
own hands. The Will-to-live is not his will. From step 
to step the psyche follows in the lines set by a reality out- 
side it, of which its physical organism is part. The pan- 
psychist looks at the process from the inside. Adaptation, 
he says, does not suggest that the individual's will is coerced 
and determined by the reality outside and beyond him, 
since it could not have taken place at all but for the indi- 



CONCLUSIONS 333 

vidual's inner disposition or will. All the same, physical 
or spiritual death will be the price of his utter defiance. 
The individual must adapt himself or go under; and if 
that is not coercion, I own it looks uncommonly like it. 

Yet, consider what (on the pan-psychist's theory) has 
really happened : that the individual's psyche has been pres- 
ent throughout the entire experience of the race, and that 
the individual could never have been what he is at each 
moment of his ascension if he had not needed, wanted, de- 
sired, and willed to be something that he was not yet. 
Consider that he would never have grown, never have de- 
veloped at all, would be limited — as many unambitious in- 
dividuals are — for all time to the companionship of the 
original speck of protoplasm he first took up with. Even 
if he advanced to the cell stage, without what strikes the 
outsider as his insane ambition to grow another cell, he 
would have remained a unicellular organism all his life. 

Therefore, on the very supposition that his earliest adap- 
tations were to a reality as yet outside and beyond him, his 
earliest developments must have entailed some slight de- 
fiance of the existing order, and his earliest need was a 
prophetic need. 

And when we come to the human individual, his latest 
and highest developments mean a very considerable defiance 
of existing order, a very considerable prophetic need. And 
his latest and highest efforts at adaptation show an audacity 
that still suggests defiance rather than submission. What- 
ever it may look like from outside, adaptation seen from 
within, as the pan-psychist sees it, looks much more like the 
fulfilment of desire than its coercion. 

If the" perfect individual is the self perfectly adapted to 
reality through the successive sublimations of his will, the 
monist will grant you the compulsion you insist on. If the 
laws of nature are the laws of the appearance of the Self, 
in whom all selves arise and have their being, the com- 
pulsion that is upon the selves to obey them is not an out- 



334 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

side compulsion. It is the compulsion of their own nature 
in its will to appear. 

in 

To sum up the metaphysical argument that we left be- 
hind us. It supposes one infinite and absolute Spirit mani- 
festing itself in many forms to many finite spirits. It 
supposes the selves of the many finite spirits to receive and 
to maintain their reality in and through the one infinite 
Self as truly as their organisms received and maintained 
their life through Its appearance as one Life-Eorce. 

For though the finite selves may exist over and above 
their organisms and their experience, and apart from each 
other, they do not subsist ; they are not over and above and 
apart from the one Self in whom they have their reality. 
But the finite selves may be supposed to be potentially in- 
finite, since they have conceived infinity. It would seem 
hardly worth while for the infinite Spirit to have revealed 
himself so far if the tremendous and significant process 
was not to be carried on. Appearances may be unreal, but 
they are significant. Why be at the pains of accumulating 
experiences through countless generations if the whole is 
to be squandered in one passionate instant of death ? 

But — on the theory — it will not by any means follow 
that, if we survive, we shall survive as the individuals we 
are now, or even as individuals at all. Selfhood, as we 
have seen, is not necessarily individuality. If our selves 
existed at all before birth, they would seem to have existed 
as members of a group-self, or as mysterious partakers in 
the experiences of millions of individuals; anyhow in a 
manner utterly incompatible with individuality as we un- 
derstood it here and now. And yet, on that theory, self- 
hood seemed to have been very efficiently maintained. 

Even in our experience here and now, though our self- 
hood would seem to remain inviolable, our individuality 
holds its own precariously, at times, and with difficulty 



CONCLUSIONS 335 

against the forces that tend to draw us back to our racial 
consciousness again. The facts of multiple personality, 
telepathy and suggestion, the higher as well as the lower 
forms of dream-consciousness, indicated that our psychic 
life is not a water-tight compartment, but has porous walls, 
and is continually threatened with leakage and the flooding 
in of many streams. 

It may be that individuality is only one stage, and that 
not the highest and the most important stage, in the real 
life-process of the self. It may be that a self can only be- 
come a perfect self in proportion as it takes on the expe- 
riences of other selves ; just as it could only become a per- 
fect individual by taking on the experience of millions 
of other individuals. 

The individual, that is to say, may have to die that the 
self may live. 

On the theory, this sacrifice would not mean what is 
called " subjective immortality," but rather the very oppo- 
site. In subjective immortality the individual lives pre- 
cariously in the memory of posterity which may, after all, 
prefer to forget him. In any case it is a form of con- 
sciousness to which, on this theory, he has contributed but 
does not share. He has no consciousness of anything any 
more at all. But the life after death of the perfected self 
would mean an enormous increase of consciousness, through 
a spiritual communion in which all that is imperfect in 
passion, all that is tentative in compassion and insight and 
inspiration is finished and complete. 

But the greatest objection to the acceptance of this form 
of Monism turns on the difficulty, not to say the impossi- 
bility, of conceiving how the selfhood of the finite selves is 
maintained in and through their fusion with the infinite 
Self. 

Now there are certain forms of dream-consciousness in 
which precisely such a transfusion is apparently effected 



336 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

and maintained. I can vouch for one authentic dream 
which began in the most ordinary fashion by the dreamer 
imagining a complex dramatic situation involving three 
persons, not counting the dreamer herself. The situation 
itself was normal, and imagined in a perfectly normal way, 
without a single element of phantasy. The dreamer, so 
far, was simply dreaming the outline of a very ordinary 
novel or a play. 

But no sooner did the outline and the parts to be played 
by the three persons become clear, then the dreamer became 
the three persons, and experienced, in one and the same 
moment, three sets of emotions, all distinct from each 
other, two of which were conflicting and two downright con- 
tradictory ; she accomplished in one and the same moment, 
through the three persons, three distinct and different acts, 
two of which were mutually exclusive; besides maintain- 
ing three distinct and appropriate attitudes to the total 
event. 

While playing, with perfect difference yet perfect unity, 
these three parts in the drama, the dreamer also stood apart 
and looked on, an unprejudiced and unmoved yet interested 
spectator. The actors, who appeared as very vividly in- 
carnate, bore no sort of resemblance to the dreamer or to 
any person known to her. From beginning to end, not 
only three distinct experiences, but three distinct selfhoods 
were preserved in one experience and one selfhood. 

It may be objected that, as dreams are hallucinations, 
we cannot argue from what happens in a dream to what 
may happen in reality ; that under analysis this particular 
dream presents no more remarkable features than any 
other dream ; and that the peculiar qualities claimed for it 
are classic features of the Freudian hypocritical dream: 
multiplication of the dreamer's person by substitution of 
other persons, and representation of events consecutive in 
time by juxtaposition in space. 63 

The third objection, which might have been serious, does 



CONCLUSIONS 337 

not hold good of this dream. Emotions and moral atti- 
tudes, and the sense of personal identity, whether simple 
and distinct, or complex and transfused, are not repre- 
sentations in space, either in dream-consciousness or in 
any other. And in the dream they were not symbolized, 
but felt; in the perfect, intimate immediacy of feeling. 

And the other objections are beside the point. It does 
not matter whether dreams are or are not hallucinations ; it 
does not matter what interpretation we put upon this 
dream, or what elements it yields under analysis. Dream 
consciousness is a form of consciousness like another ; it has 
its own reality. It is not claimed for this dream that a 
" real " transfusion of consciousness and of selves took 
place in it, only that it gave a perfect and indubitable sense 
of such transfusion, of what it would feel like if the trans- 
fusion did take place ; also that, as the dream was at least 
clear enough and coherent enough to be remembered and 
analysed by the dreamer, their remained in waking con- 
sciousness a valid conception of the whole synthetic event 
— a synthetic event which was said to be inconceivable. 

Ruling out irrelevant objections, then, there are only 
three points that need concern us. We have in this dream- 
consciousness a plurality of illusory consciousnesses, a 
plurality of illusory selves, held together by one " real " 
self, and existing in and through and for one real conscious- 
ness, and that without loss to the integrity of one illusory 
item of the illusory complex, without any rupture of the 
unity of the one self. 

The complex is illusory only by comparison with the pe- 
culiar reality of waking consciousness. It, however, exists ; 
it has its own dream reality. It arises, presumably, be 
cause the dream consciousness is free from those condi- 
tions of real space and real time which determine the 
psycho-physical life of the individual when awake. 

For " illusory " read " finite," and you have an exact 
rendering of the situation assumed by pantheistic Monism : 



338 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

A plurality of finite consciousnesses, a plurality of finite 
selves, held together by one Eeal Self, existing in and 
through and for one Eeal consciousness ; and that without 
loss to the integrity of one finite item of the finite com- 
plex, without rupture to the unity of the one Self. You 
may say that the finite complex is unreal only by com- 
parison with the peculiar reality of the infinite Real. It 
has its own reality. And you may say that the situation 
assumed by the monist presupposes a corresponding trans- 
cendence of the conditions of finite space and finite time. 

The one Infinite Spirit, then, is the finite selves. That 
the selves are not conscious of this union is the tragedy of 
their finitude. In our present existence we are spirit ; but 
so limited in our experience that we know the appearances 
of Spirit far better than we know Spirit itself. If we 
knew them all, and if, in order to know them, it so hap- 
pened that we increased the pace of the rhythm of time as 
it is increased in our dream-consciousness, only to an im- 
measurably more intense degree, the chances are that we 
should know Spirit, not as it appears, but as it is. 63 Ap- 
pearances would be whirled for us, as it were, into the one 
Reality, as the colours of the spectrum, painted on a re- 
volving disc, are whirled into one whiteness by the sheer 
rapidity of its revolutions. 

There are, after all, different kinds of certainty. And 
all our certainties that count, here and now, come to us 
after this fashion. Our inner states do succeed each other 
at different rates of vibration, and what escapes us on the 
slow, steady swing, we seize when the pace quickens. Our 
perceptions, like our passions, maintain themselves at 
higher and lower intensities. It is with such rapid flashes 
of the revolving disc, with such hurrying of the rhythm of 
time, with such heightening of psychic intensity that we 
discern Reality here and now. 

No reasoning allows or accounts for these moments. 
But lovers and poets and painters and musicians and 



CONCLUSIONS 339 

mystics and heroes know them: moments when eternal 
Beauty is seized travelling through time; moments when 
things that we have seen all our lives without truly seeing 
them, the flowers in the garden, the trees in the field, the 
hawthorn on the hillside, change to us in an instant of time, 
and show the secret and imperishable life they harbour; 
moments when the human creature we have known all our 
life without truly knowing it, reveals its incredible god- 
head; moments of danger that are moments of sure and 
perfect happiness, because then the adorable Reality gives 
itself to our very sight and touch. 

There is no arguing against certainties like these. 



APPENDIX 

THE PAN-PSYCHISM OF SAMUEL BUTLER 

Pages 1-43 

1. Psycho-analysis and the problems it raises are the subject of 
a sequel to this volume, The Way of Sublimation. 

2. " The neurotic, far more plainly than the normal psyche 
shows us that ' Through the great Being that surrounds and in- 
terpenetrates us stretches a great Becoming that strives for per- 
fected Being.' " (Dr. Alfred Adler, TJeber den Nervosen Char- 
acter, p. 195.) 

3. See Ereud, The Interpretation of Dreams, On Dreams; and 
Jung, Analytical Psychology (translation by Dr. Constance 
Long) and The Psychology of the Unconscious (translation by 
Dr. Beatrice Hinkle, M.D., New York). 

4. See The Way of Sublimation. 

5. See Life and Habit, Unconscious Memory, Evolution Old 
and New, Luck or Gunning? God the Known and God the Un- 
known, and The Note-Books of Samuel Butler. 

6. See Unconscious Memory; translation of Professor Ewald 
Hering's Address on " Memory as a Universal Eunction of Or- 
ganized Matter." 

7. Note-Books, p. 56. 

8. It is worth while noting that consciousness of all these 
functions may be partially restored through disease or disorder 
of the organs involved, and that we have even in normal health 
a certain very limited and temporary control over our breath- 
ing, while in illness we " fight for our breath " — make an effort 
to breathe. We have in normal circumstances a certain still 
more limited control over the beating of our hearts; that is to 
say, we can increase or reduce palpitation by attention or in- 
attention. This fact is so well recognized by doctors that they 
will not always allow a patient to know that he has " something 
the matter " with his heart. But by no fighting and no effort 
can normal people, even in abnormal circumstances, re-estab- 
lish control over their digestive functions, which are the oldest 
of all. 

Abnormal people, however, can accomplish a good deal in this 

34 1 



342 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

line. The practisers of Yogi have so far organized control over 
the " Unconscious " that they can lower the action of the heart 
and lungs till both functions are apparently suspended; they 
can reverse the movements of the intestines ; inhibit the physical 
phenomena of hunger, and play other tricks, more or less re- 
volting, with their organs. Persons suffering from profound 
hysterical neurosis can do as much. Probably most instances 
of the ability to fast for abnormal periods come under this head. 
So that it would seem that the links between the Conscious and 
the Unconscious, between reflex and voluntary action have 
never been completely lost. It is even conceivable that, if we 
cared to pay the price, we could recover them completely, and 
" by taking thought " become once more mere breathing and di- 
gesting organisms, animated by a rudimentary psyche. People 
who pride themselves upon the possession of such abnormal 
powers should realize precisely what it is that they are doing. 

9. Life and Habit, p. 47. 

10. ". . . We may assume it as an axiom with regard to ac- 
tions acquired after birth, that we never do them automatically 
save as the result of long practice, and after having thus ac- 
quired perfect mastery over the action in question." (Life and 
Habit, p. 53.) 

11. " Shall we say, then, that a baby of a day old sucks (which 
involves the whole principle of the pump and hence a profound 
practical knowledge of the laws of pneumatics and hydrostatics), 
digests, oxygenizes its blood (millions of years before Sir Hum- 
phry Davy discovered oxygen), sees and hears — all most diffi- 
cult and complicated operations, involving a knowledge of the 
facts concerning optics and acoustics, compared with which the 
discoveries of Newton sink into utter insignificance? Shall we 
say that a baby can do all these things at once, doing them so 
well and so regularly, without being even able to direct its at- 
tention to them, and without mistakes, and at the same time not 
know how to do them, and never have done them before I " 
(Life and Habit, p. 54.) 

Of course if you are going to be pedantic and literal about it, 
you can say that the baby's action may indeed " involve " the 
" principle " of the pump, but that it need not and does not 
involve a " knowledge of the laws of pneumatics," etc. " In- 
volving " is a treacherous word in this connection ; but Butler's 
meaning is clear: that the baby's instinctive and practical 
knowledge is superior (for its purposes) to all other kinds of 
knowledge. 

12. Life and Habit, pp. 55, 56. 



APPENDIX 343 

13. Note-Boohs of Samuel Butler, pp. 53, 54. 

14. Life and Habit, p. 130. 

15. Life and Habit, p. 131. 

16. Life and Habit, p. 51. 

The older physiology might have accounted for the coinci- 
dences on the grounds that our visceral functions are controlled 
by that system of reflexes which used to be known as the " sym- 
pathetic " system, working " on its own." But now that the 
voluntary and involuntary sensori-motor arcs are found to be 
connected, Butler's coincidence remains as singular as ever from 
the purely physical standpoint. 

" The muscles of the visceral system are connected by sen- 
sori-motor arcs principally with sense-organs that are embedded 
in the viscera, and are stimulated by movements, pressures, and 
chemical changes in the viscera; and these arcs constitute a 
system of nerves that was for long considered to be quite separate 
from, and independent of, the other larger system, and was 
known as the sympathetic system. We know now, however, 
that the two systems of sensori-motor arcs, the skeletal or vol- 
untary " [involved in " all those movements of the limbs, trunk, 
head, and organs of speech by which relations with the outer 
world are maintained"], "and the visceral or involuntary are 
intimately connected." (William McDougall, Physiological 
Psychology, p. 16.) 

17. Note-Boohs, pp. 39-92. 

18. For these extensions and confirmations of Butler's theory, 
see Life and Habit, pp. 166-197 and 220-251. 

19. Dr. McDougall, in his one reference to Butler in Body 
and Mind, supposes him to have declared that all memory and 
instinct are merely habit, whereas Butler maintains the very 
opposite. 

20. Life and Habit, p. 49. See also Luch or Cunning f pp. 
20-70. 

21. Note-Boohs, pp. 47-55; Life and Habit, pp. 78-124; Luch 
or Cunning ? pp. 23, 24, 25. 

22. See Lotze, Metaphysih, p. 602. 
Also infra, pp. 120, 121. 

SOME ULTIMATE QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

Pages 67-108 

23. " Feeling-tone, as the word implies, is in some way depend- 
ent on the sensations. Nevertheless, the feeling-tone is in 
some degree independent of sensation-quality; for one quality 



344 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

of sensation may be at one time pleasant, at another unpleasant, 
and at a third have no appreciable feeling-tone." (William 
McDougall, Physiological Psychology, pp. 79, 80. See also Body 
and Mind, pp. 312-313.) 

24. See infra, pp. 76, 77, 112, 113. 

25. Body and Mind, pp. 211 et seq., pp. 215-220. 

". . . we may believe that the essential peculiarity of living 
organisms is that they serve as channels of communication or 
of transmission of energy or influence from the psychical to the 
physical sphere; and we may believe also that the evolution of 
organisms has been essentially a process by which they have be- 
come better adapted to play this unique role." (Body and 
Mind, p. 221.) 

26. Ibid. pp. 151, 180. 

27. See Fechner, Psycho-Physih, In Sache der Psycho-Physik, 
Ueber die Seelen Frage, Zend-Avesta. 

28. Body and Mind, pp. 319-321, 340, 341, 343; also 
Physiological Psychology, p. 146. 

29. Certain experiments seem to show that it is possible to 
measure the output of nervous energy by studying the influence 
of fatigue in the curve of muscular work or in the reduction 
of sensitivity to stimuli. And still we are as far as ever from a 
satisfactory demonstration of strict psycho-physical parallelism. 
For in the nature of the case results, when obtainable, will be 
drawn, not from comparison of complicated experiences, involv- 
ing an extensive psychic output, but from single, simple opera- 
tions, such as the raising of a weight, or (in the case of stimula- 
tion of the optic nerve) the rapid turning of a coloured disc. 
Even granted that these experiments are successful, the propor- 
tion thus established between muscular innervation and mus- 
cular fatigue, between nerve stimulus and nerve fatigue falls 
within the nervous system; that is to say, it holds good only on 
the physical line. The psychic process (which is not to be con- 
founded with the neural process) eludes the test. As you can 
never catch, as it were, your psychic total, psychic increment can 
neither be proved nor disproved. 

SOME ULTIMATE QUESTIONS OF METAPHYSICS 

Pages 109-126 

30. Supra, " Vitalism," pp. 44-48. 

PKAGMATISM AND HUMANISM 

Pages 127-150. 

31. Humanism and Riddles of the Sphinx. 

32. F. C. S. Schiller, Preface to Humanism, p. xviii. 



APPENDIX 345 

THE NEW EEALISM 

Pages 151-239 

33. " Symbolic," because the laws of Eormal Logic concern 
only the connections between propositions, and these proposi- 
tions can be stated in terms of " variables." Eor example : If x 
is greater than y and y is greater than z, then x is greater than z. 

The connection between the propositions holds good for every 
value (variable) of x and y. X and y thus stand as " sym- 
bolic " of everything to which the proposition can validly apply. 

34. " The distinction of mathematics from logic is very arbi- 
trary, but ... it can be made as follows. Logic consists of the 
premisses of mathematics, together with all other propositions 
which are concerned exclusively with logical constants and 
with variables, but do not fulfil the above definition of mathe- 
matics. 1 Mathematics consists of all the consequences of the 
above premisses which assert formal implications containing 
variables, together with such of the premisses themselves as bear 
these marks. Thus some of the premisses of mathematics, e.g. 
the principle of the syllogism if p implies q and q implies r, 
then p implies r, will belong to mathematics, while others, such 
as " implication is a relation," will belong to logic, but not to 
mathematics. But for the desire to adhere to usage we might 
identify mathematics and logic, and define either as the class of 
propositions containing only variables and logical constants." 
(Principia Mathematica, p. 9.) 

" The distinction between a variable and a constant is some- 
what obscured by mathematical usage. ... A constant is to be 
something absolutely definite, concerning which there is no 
ambiguity whatever. Thus 1, 2, 3, e, 7r, Socrates, are constants, 
and so are man and the human race, past, present, and future, 
considered collectively. Proposition, implication, class, etc., 
are constants; but a proposition, any proposition, some proposi- 
tions are not constants, for these phrases do not denote one 
definite object." {Ibid. p. 6.) 

i " Pure Mathematics is the class of all propositions of the form 
of p implies q where p and q are propositions containing one or 
more variables, the same in the two propositions, and neither p nor 
q contains any constants except logical constants. And logical con- 
stants are all notions definable in terms of the following: Implica- 
tion, the relation of a term to the class of which it is a member, the 
notion of such that, the notion of relation, and such further notions 
as may be involved in the general notion of propositions of the above 
form. In addition to these, mathematics uses a notion which is not 
a constituent of the propositions which it considers, namely, the no- 
tion of truth." {Principia Mathematica, p. 3.) 



346 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

" The connection of mathematics with logic, according to 
the above account, is exceedingly close. The fact that all 
mathematical constants are logical constants, and that all the 
premisses of mathematics are concerned with these, gives, I 
believe, the precise statement of what philosophers have meant 
in asserting that mathematics is a priori. The fact is, that when 
once the apparatus of logic has been accepted, all mathematics 
necessarily follow." (Ibid. p. 8.) 

35. Bertrand Russell, Our Knowledge of the External World, 
pp. 87 et seq. Also infra, American Edition, pp. 168, 169, 170. 

It should be borne in mind that the conclusion, so distressing 
for the idealist, is not forced on him by the mathematical defini- 
tion of continuity. Physics, Mr. Russell tells us, accepts the 
ideal elements of mathematics without enquiry into their reality. 
" It is unnecessary, for the enunciation of the laws of physics, 
to assign any reality to ideal elements: it is enough to accept 
them as logical constructions, provided we have means of know- 
ing how to determine when they become actual." After all, the 
fact remains that mathematical continuity is based on purely 
fictitious or " ideal " points and instances, assumed for the 
purpose of constructing a self-consistent definition. 

" Les axiomes geometriques ne sont . . . ni des jugements 
synthetiques a priori, ni des faits experimentaux. 

" Ce sont des conventions ; notre choix parmi toutes les con- 
ventions possibles, est guide par des faits experimentaux; mais 
il reste libre et n'est limite que par la necessite d'eviter toute 
contradiction . . . ; les axiomes de la geometrie . . . ne sont 
que des definitions deguisees." (Poincare, La Science et VHy- 
pothese, p. QQ.) 

Since, further, mathematical space and time are absolute and 
infinite, and actual space is an affair of relations and correla- 
tions, you cannot argue from the continuity of mathematical 
space to the continuity of actual space and of the things that 
occupy it. How, then, are we to determine when the ideal ele- 
ments " become actual " ? All that Realism can hope to gain is 
the proof that its own logical constructions — founded on a 
purely ideal " convention " — can be manipulated so as to exclude 
contradiction. The crucial problem for Realism will be how 
to effect such constructions and correlations as shall be equally 
self -consistent ; how, in short, to reduce " the haphazard, un- 
tidy world of immediate sensation to the smooth, orderly world 
of geometry and kinetics." In immediate experience correla- 
tion is going on all the time. 

" The first thing to notice is that different senses have dif- 



APPENDIX 347 

ferent spaces. The space of sight is quite different from the 
space of touch : it is only by experience in infancy that we learn 
to correlate thern. . . . The one space into which both kinds 
of sensations fit is an intellectual construction, not a datum. 
. . . The one all-embracing space, though convenient as a way 
of speaking — " 

(Still more convenient, one would imagine, as a way of 
thinking) — "need not be supposed really to exist." (Our 
Knowledge of the External World, p. 113.) 

What could the idealist wish for more? 

However, Dr. Whitehead has invented a method " for the 
purpose of showing how points might be manipulated from sense- 
data." It amounts to this: You can, by an effort of atten- 
tion, regard your bit of finite space (volume or surface) as con- 
sisting of parts contained in a whole. You obtain your points 
by a system or series of diminishing enclosures converging to a 
point. The " enclosure-relation " is called a " point -producer." 
Again, I must leave the process to Mr. Russell to explain. 

" Given any relation of enclosure, we will call a set of ob- 
jects an enclosure-series. We require a condition which shall 
secure that an enclosure-series converges to a point, and this is 
obtained as follows: Let our enclosure-series be such that, 
given any other enclosure-series of which there are members 
enclosed in any arbitrarily-chosen member of our first series, 
then there are members of our first series enclosed in any arbi- 
trarily-chosen member of our second series. In this case, our 
first enclosure-series may be called a ' punctual enclosure-series. , 
Then a ' point y is all the objects which enclose members of a 
given * punctual enclosure-series.' In order to ensure infinite 
divisibility, we require one further property to be added to those 
defining point-producers, namely, that any object which encloses 
itself also encloses an object other than itself. The ' points ' 
generated by point-producers with this property will be found 
to be such as geometry requires." (Ibid. p. 115.) 

You have got, that is to say, by logical manipulation, another 
self -consistent definition; but you are no nearer to solving the 
problem of how ideal elements " become actual." All this 
" manufacture " and " manipulation " and " construction " is 
far more like the despised "work of thought" than that pas- 
sive contemplation of spectacular realities which atomistic 
Realism assumes. And the entire universe of space and time 
depends on it! 

Again, Poincare : 

" On voit que l'experience joue une role indispensable dans la 



348 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

genese de la geometrie ; mais ce serait une erreur d'en conclure 
que la geometrie est une science experimentale, meme en 
partie. . . . 

" La geometrie ne serait que l'etude des mouvements des 
solides ; mais elle ne s'occupe pas en realite des solides naturels, 
elle a pour objets certain solides ideaux, absolument invariables, 
qui n'en sont qu'une image simplified et bien lointaine. 

"La notion de ces corps ideaux est tiree de toutes pieces de 
notre esprit et 1' experience n'est qu'une occasion qui nous en- 
gage a Ten fa ire sortir. 

" Ce qui est l'objet de la geometrie, c'est l'etude d'un ' groupe ' 
particulier; mais le concept generale de groupe preexiste dans 
notre esprit au moins en puissance. II s'impose a nous, non 
comme forme de notre sensibilite, mais comme forme de notre 
entendement." {La Science et VHypothese, p. 90.) 

Could anything be plainer ? 

36. Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, pp. 142, 
157; Cecil Delisle Burns, William of Ockham on Universals. 

37. Bertrand Russell, "The Monistic Theory of Truth" in 
Philosophical Essays. 

Also Ralph Barton Perry, " A Realistic Theory of Independ- 
ence," and William Pepperell Montague, " A Realistic Theory 
of Truth and Error" in The New Realists: A Symposium of 
Six. (The Macmillan Company, New York.) 

38. It is on this narrow plot of thought that Hegel's critics 
and his followers have joined issue, and to the unprejudiced 
spectator of their conflicts they seem to have been leagued to- 
gether to suppress every word that Hegel ever wrote outside the 
three fat volumes of his Logic. Of course if you take the Logic 
as the whole of Hegel, and as the beginning and end of the 
Transcendental Philosophy, there is no charge that his opponents 
ever brought against him, and no travesty of his system that his 
followers ever perpetrated, so absurd that it could not be justified. 

And if this were all, Hegelianism would be, indeed, what some 
unsympathetic person said it was, " a dance of bloodless cate- 
gories." I forget who was responsible for the pleasant fancy 
that when German philosophies die their ghosts go to Oxford. 
It was certainly the ghost of Hegelianism that inhabited Balliol 
in the 'eighties, till its ceaseless hauntings provoked the healthy 
reaction of Pragmatism and Humanism. Goodness knows why 
Hegel's disciples should have conceived that it was their sacred 
mission to mutilate their master so as to leave out of his system 
the one principle that made it vital, and to whittle it down to a 
bare epistemology. 



APPENDIX 349 

Epistemology — a metaphysic based on the sterile abstract 
categories of the Understanding whose utter impotence he was 
never tired of demonstrating. One can only suppose that the 
Triple Dialectic was too much for the disciples, and that they 
thought they were simplifying him. 

There is, however, this excuse for them, that, though Hegel 
was perfectly clear about what he meant, he was not always cau- 
tious about what he said. What he meant — and said so often 
that there should have been no possible doubt as to his meaning 
— was that Spirit is the prius, and that Thought is only part (an 
important part, but still only part) of the whole gorgeous, con- 
crete, and abundant life of Spirit. But being a poet with an im- 
agination, as well as a philosopher with a system, he also said that 
Thought was the diamond-net in which the universe is hung ; and 
all his opponents and his followers took this saying literally. 

Literally, and yet not literally enough. For the net is surely 
not the thing it snares. However, as Thought was a thing 
both critics and followers were fairly familiar with, and Spirit 
presumably was not, wherever and whenever afterwards Hegel 
spoke to them of Spirit, they refused to listen to him. Had 
he not said at the end of the third fat volume of his Logic 
that the Idea, the Transcendental Idea, was the Whole? Had 
he not said that Thought was the Ding-an-sich? 

What he did say, criticizing Kant, was that the Thing-in- 
Itself is what the Absolute is, of which " nothing is known but 
that everything is one in it." (Logih, Book I. p. 121. Berlin, 
1841.) He denned it, with ferocious asperity, as a " dead-head," 
the "utterly abstract and entirely empty, only definable as the 
Beyond, the negative of idea and feeling and of definite think- 
ing." He said it was surprising " how often we are told that 
we don't know what the Thing-in-Itself is," and added sar- 
castically that " nothing was easier than to know it." (En- 
cyclopadie, p. 67.) He said that "the Logic was the setting 
forth of what the Thing-in-Itself in truth is, of what is truly 
in it " ; and that " by ' In-Itself ' something better than an ab- 
straction is to be understood, namely, what something is in its 
concept," the concept being a very concrete and definite af- 
fair. (Logih, p. 121.) And he certainly did say that the 
Transcendental Idea was the Whole, meaning the logical Whole 
that he was dealing with in the three fat volumes. Then he 
paused to take breath before letting his system rip in the vaster 
Dialectic of the Spirit. That pause was fatal to him. For 
whatever he might say afterwards nobody attended to him. His 
followers had got their catchword ! " Thought is the Ding-an- 
sich." 



350 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

Yet it should be clear to every -unprejudiced reader of the 
Encyclopddie and the Phanomenologie that Spirit and not 
Thought is the all-embracing term; the beginning and end of 
Being and Becoming; the through-all and in-all; the only prin- 
ciple that can be first in thought and first also in existence. 
The whole course of the Triple Dialectic depends on it. And 
he is explicit enough : 

" The absolute Idea alone is Being, imperishable life, truth 
that knows itself, and it is all truth " — as far as thought goes. 
(Logik, Book III. p. 318.) 

But Spirit is " that which is the truth and the end of Nature, 
and the true Reality of the Ideal." (Encyclopddie, p. 211.) 

For the " Logic " " this Idea is as yet logical; it is shut within 
pure thought ; it is the Knowledge only of the divine idea. The 
systematic carrying-out of it is itself realization — but con- 
tained within this sphere" (p. 342). 

" At every stage of its wider determination it upheaves the 
whole mass of its foregoing content; and through its dialectic 
process it not only leaves nothing behind, but it carries with it 
all that it has won, it enriches and thickens itself in itself." 

• •••••• 

" Every stage of the outgoing, of wider determination, is an 
ingoing; the greater the extension the higher the intensity. 
Therefore, what is richest is also the most concrete and the most 
subjective; the mightiest and that which has the biggest stretch 
is that which finds itself again in the depth of simplicity. The 
highest, the sharpest point is pure Personality." (Logik, Book 
I. pp. 60, 61.) 

It is the Absolute Spirit which at the end of the process is 
known " as the concrete and the last highest truth of all 
Being." 

" The essential thing for knowledge is not so much that it 
should begin (as the Logic begins) with the purely immediate, 
but that its whole of knowledge should be a circle returning into 
itself, in which the First is also the Last, and the Last is also 
the First." (Logik, Book I. pp. 60, 61.) 

39. Mr. E. B. Holt's argument, even if psycho-physically 
sound, cuts both ways. 

" And now I can reply to the anti-realist's question : How 
can realism pretend to assert the reality of the odour, sound, and 
so forth which are vividly present in the dreams of a person 
sleeping, it may be, in a box no bigger than his coffin ? Realism, 
I say, can assert this because the nervous system, even when 
unstimulated from without, is able to generate within itself 



APPENDIX 351 

nerve-currents of those frequencies whose density factor is the 
same as in ordinary peripheral stimulation." (The New Real- 
ism, p. 352.) 

The anti-realist may agree that he gets nerve-stimulation in 
either case, just as he agrees that hallucinations can be dis- 
tinguished from " external realities " by their contexts. (For 
the matter of that a hallucination may appear as externalized 
in public space.) I do not see why he should be represented 
as worrying about " the box no bigger than his coffin," since a 
box no bigger than his head contrives to house the nerve-centres 
that are implicated. His question is: What kind of reality, or 
of appearance, is to be ascribed to the objects of sense-percep- 
tion? His anti-ness would declare itself rather in contending 
that if you will ascribe absolute outside reality to all spaces and 
to all times and to all objects in space and time, then, when 
you've proved that your nervous system is able " to generate 
within itself nerve-currents of those frequencies whose density 
factor is the same as in ordinary peripheral stimulation" it is, 
to say the least of it, a little odd that your motor experiences in 
dream space are so very far from being " the same " as your 
motor experiences in " ordinary " space. 

The realist argues as if the nerve-currents had everything to 
do with the " reality " of dream-experiences and hallucinations. 
Very well, then. Establish the same conditions of " frequency," 
" density factor," and the rest of it, and what you ought to ex- 
pect from your dream is a sober expedition in a space con- 
formed in every way to ordinary space, and the sober spectacle 
of objects behaving in an ordinary spatial manner, and not ex- 
peditions and spectacles so far from ordinary as to presuppose 
a dream-space and a dream-time and a dream-behaviour that 
do not conform at all. 

THE NEW MYSTICISM 

Pages 240-289 

40. Jane Harrison, Protegomena to Greek Religion, pp. 9 et 
seq., 32-76, 163 et seq.; also p. 64. Themis, pp. 270, 275. 

Sir James G. Erazer, The Belief in Human Immortality, pp. 
201, 226, 239, 247, 259, 288, 289, 348, 367 et seq.; also pp. 346, 
371. 380. Adonis, Attis, Osiris, pp. 45 et seq., 219 et seq. 

41. Jane Harrison, Protegomena, pp. 21, 327 et seq. Themis, 
p. 261 et seq. 

42. Buddhist Suttas, translated by Professor Phys Davids. 



352 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

A. 

Akankheya-Sutta, pp. 14, 15. {Sacred Boohs of the East, 
edited by Professor Max Miiller.) 

43. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious, pp. 100 et seq., 
260. (Translated by Beatrice M. Hinkle, M.D., New York.) 

Pierre Janet, L ' Automatisme psychologique. Etat mental 
des hysteriques, vol. ii. Les accidents mentaux. The Major 
Symptoms of Hysteria. 

Anna Eobeson Burr, Religious Confessions and Confessants, 
pp. 194-284. 

44. Life of St. Teresa, Written by Herself, ch. xx. xxix. 

45. Life of St. Catherine of Genoa, by Baron von Hiitten. 

46. St. John of the Cross, The Dark Night of the Soul 
(translation by Gabriela Cunningham Grahame), pp. 235-237. 

47. St. John of the Cross, The Hark Night, pp. 47-55, 100, 
116, 120. 

48. Anna Robeson Burr, Religious Confessions, p. 357. 

49. Life of St. Teresa, ch. xxv. 

50. Interpretation of Hreams; On Hreams. 

51. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, May, June, 
and July 1916; and January 1917. 

52. See infra, << Conclusions," pp. 335, 336, 337. 

53. The Upanishads, translated by Max Miiller. Part I. 
{Sacred Boohs of the East, vol. i.) 

54. "It is right ... to state here that Oriental Mysticism 
insists upon a further stage beyond that of union, which stage it 
regards as the real goal of the spiritual life. This is the total 
annihilation or reabsorption of the individual soul in the In- 
finite." {Mysticism, p. 207.) 

" The tendency of Indian mysticism to regard the Unitive Life 
wholly in its passive aspect, as a total self-annihilation, a disap- 
pearance into the substance of the Godhead, results, I believe, 
from ... a one-sided distortion of truth. The Oriental mystic 
' presses on to lose his life upon the heights ' ; but he does not 
come back from the grave and bring to his fellow-men the life- 
giving news that he has transcended mortality in the interests of 
the race. The temperamental bias of Western mystics towards 
activity has saved them from such a one-sided achievement as 
this; and hence it is in them that the Unitive Life, with its 
' dual character of activity and rest/ has assumed its richest 
and its noblest forms." {Ibid. p. 520.) 

" In the East . . . the contemplative and world-renouncing 
quest of the Absolute . . . which developed under the influence 
of Hindu philosophy, has been from the first divorced from the 



APPENDIX 353 

warmly vital and more truly mystic, outgoing and fruitful, 
world-renewing attitude of Love. . . . 

"... The search for transcendence, as we see it in orthodox 
Hinduism and Buddhism, represents in its general tendency, 
not a movement of expansion, not the generous industry of in- 
satiable love; but a movement of withdrawal, the cultivation of 
an exquisite and aristocratic despair. Inspired by the intellect 
rather than by the heart, the whole mystical philosophy of the 
Hindus has as its presupposition a strong feeling of the transi- 
toriness and unreality of existence." (The Mystic Way, pp. 21, 
22.) 

In the case of Sufi-ism, Miss Underhill admits that the inter- 
pretations of European students may be incorrect, and that Al 
Ghazzali's description of the Sufi's Eighth Stage of Progress 
" is certainly more applicable to the Unitive Life as understood 
by Christian contemplatives than to the Buddhistic annihilation 
of personality.'' (Mysticism, p. 207.) 

It would not be fair to quote Miss Underhill as claiming, in 
1913, a Christian influence for the mysticism of the Vaish- 
navists Ramanuja and Ramananda (see The Mystic Way, pp. 
23, 24, 25), since in 1914 she has admitted very handsomely that 
"this is a point upon which competent authorities hold widely 
divergent views." (Introduction to One Hundred Poems of 
Kabir.) But I hope she will forgive me if I take a mean ad- 
vantage of her footnote referring to Vaishnavism. 

" The fact that this movement, on its lower and popular side, 
gave support to the most erotic and least desirable aspects of the 
Krishna cult, ought not to prejudice our judgment of its higher 
and purer aspect. The wholesale condemnation of a faith on 
account of its worst by-products is a dangerous principle for 
Christian critics." (The Mystic Way, p. 23.) 

It is, of course, a dangerous principle for anybody, as it cuts 
pretty badly both ways. All the same, the sticklers for the 
" Influence " are in a dilemma. Either Christianity really had 
nothing to do with the Humanist forms of Eastern mysticism, 
or it was responsible for their lowest and impurest aspect. 

Perhaps the less said about eroticism the better. 

55. " Dance, my heart ! dance to-day with joy. 

" The strains of love fill the days and the nights with music, 
and the world is listening to the melodies: 

" Mad with joy, life, and death, dance to the rhythm of this 
music. The hills and the sea and the earth dance. The world 
of man dances in laughter and tears." (The Thirty-Second 
Poem of Kabir.) 



354 A DEFENCE OF IDEALISM 

56. " To amuse and to delight Gertrude of Eisleben, He sang 
duets with her ' in a tender and harmonious voice.' The same 
saint writes of their ' incredible intimacy ' ; and here, as in later 
passages of Angela da Foligno, the reader is revolted by their 
sensuality." (Anna Robeson Burr, Religious Confessions and 
Confessants, p. 357.) 

57. Psychology of the Unconscious, pp. 97, 98. 

58. Ibid. pp. 130, 132. 



CONCLUSIONS 

Pages 290-339 

59. Sir James G. Frazer, The Belief in Human Immortality, 
pp. 470, 471. 

60. Ibid., pp. 371, 380. 

61. Ibid., loc. cit. See also Jane Harrison on " The Hero as 
Snake " and " The Snake as Well and Tree-Daimon," Themis, 
pp. 261 et seq., and pp. 430, 431, 432. 

62. Sabbdsava-Sutta {Sacred Boohs of the East, vol. xi. ; The 
Buddhist Suttas, translated by Professor Rhys Davids). 

In Professor Rhys Davids' translation the last sentence runs : 
"... this soul of mine is permanent, lasting, eternal, has the 
inherent quality of never changing, and will continue for ever 
and ever." 

I do not offer the phrase " Deadly Things " as a rendering of 
" Asavas." But it may pass as a picturesque and disorderly 
substitute. The Pali word appears to have no exact moral 
equivalent. Professor Rhys Davids says: 

"I am unable to suggest any good translation of the term 
itself — simple though it is. It means literally ' a running or 
flowing' (thence), a leak; but as that figure is not used in 
English in a spiritual sense, it is necessary to choose some other 
figure, and it is not easy to find one that is appropriate. ' Sin ' 
would be very misleading, the Christian idea of sin being incon- 
sistent with Buddhist Ethics. A ' fault ' in the geological use 
of the word comes somewhat nearer. ' Imperfection ' is too 
long, and for ' stain ' the Pali has a different word. In the Book 
of the Great Decease I have chosen ' evil ' ; here I leave the word 
untranslated." (Introduction.) 

May I suggest that, though the original figure "running or 
flowing " has no " spiritual " sense in English, it has in various 
languages of philosophy a metaphysical sense, which is of the 
first importance in this highly metaphysical Sutta? We have 



APPENDIX 355 

" the flux of things," the " stream of consciousness," so why not 
" The Book of All the Life-Streams "? 

63. See Bergson, Matiere et Memoire, p. 231. 

" En realite il n'y a pas un rythme unique de la duree, on peut 
imaginer bien des rhythmes difrerents, qui, plus lent ou plus 
rapides, mesureraient le degre de tension ou de relachement des 
consciences, et, par la, fixeraient leurs places respectives dans la 
serie des etres." 



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